Ten Great Fantasy Books for Young Children

From the time that she was pregnant with her first child, this Fantasy nerd planned her slow and steady campaign to indoctrinate her kids into the world of Fantasy, dreaming of the day that they would lie in bed together reading Harry Potter and then drift off to a happy, magic-filled dream sleep.

It is now several years later and to my great dismay, that time has not yet come to pass.

As I watched my children do all the baby things like learn to crawl and eat solid food and chew on the carpet, I eventually realized that said indoctrination to the world of Fantasy would have to start with something a bit easier than Harry Potter.

And so I embarked on a search for great toddler-appropriate fantasy picture books with enticing stories that I could read to them starting about one and a half to two years of age. Now, after years of blind buying books on Amazon and falling prey to a host of review-lies, I present you with this uber-verified list.

These are in order of comprehension difficulty for kids, starting at 1 and a half years of age, to about 4+ years of age. They fulfill all the criteria below:

a.        They are not boring, in that I, as a Fantasy-loving adult, genuinely find something to appreciate in all of them, whether it be the humor, the cleverness of the stories, the well-loved Fantasy tropes, or the themes. This is a very important criterion (see (c ) below).

b.       They are all Fantasy genre or at least Fantasy-genre adjacent books (except number 8 which leans more Science Fiction).

c.        My children have asked me to read these books to them more than 10 times each. I have since learned that this is normal child behavior, and I do now recall that I myself loved to reread books over and over again when I was a child. I suppose kids grow up so quickly in between one to four years of age that they understand new things in the books with every re-read, and therefore don't tire of them quickly.

I also think these books have helped my children’s sense of play and imagination and vocabulary a lot, and for that, they are worth all the money I spent (wasted) on Amazon buying all sorts of children’s books recommended by every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there, to find these gems. Some were too hard (not age-appropriate), some were too simple (boring for me to read), and some my children simply didn’t like (but I did). You never really know what will hit all three criteria, until you start reading it to your kids.

They are as listed below, so you don’t have to waste your money like me.

A last note... These are all toddler-appropriate picture books with word-stories in them (not the sort of book with pictures only without words and written stories, which I enjoy exactly zero), the list is in order of reading ability (easiest first), and a series counts as one book because I say so.

1.        Chu’s Day at the Beach (also Chu’s First Day of School) by Neil Gaiman & Adam Rex – from Neil Gaiman, who would have thought. He is a great writer but most of his books lean towards the quite dark, so I wouldn’t have expected this whimsical little tale from him. I honestly didn’t think this book was that great at first, I mean, it was a cute read, being about a little Panda who sneezes super hard and causes all sorts of mayhem when he does, but that was it. My kids adored this book, however, for some reason, and asked it to be read over and over when they were about two years of age, and other parents that I have given this book to have told me that they had the same experience with their kids, so it goes on the list. It also gets bonus points for being a board book (i.e., tear and stain-proof for young toddlers)

2.        Frog and Toad The Complete Collection by Arnold Lobel – Our copy is frayed all over and stained with all kinds of spaghetti sauce and chocolate from being read over and over in the last four years. This is one of the absolute best toddler Fantasy books out there, about best friends Frog and Toad and the decidedly domestic adventures they have in their cozy and beautiful forest home. These clever stories make interesting moments out of everyday life and their stout friendship, and the humor is both simple enough for young children to grasp and clever enough for an adult to appreciate. My kids started asking for this to be read over and over from the time they were two and continue to do so until this day some four years later.

3.        Nobody Likes a Goblin by Ben Hatke – an absolute gem I picked up on a whim from my local bookstore, and have since read not less than fifty times and have bought about twenty copies for all my friends’ kids for Christmases and birthdays. It is written for kids and most definitely for the D&D Fantasy-loving parent (I see you, Ben Hatke!), as it is about a little Goblin who lives in a dungeon until adventurers suddenly plunder his home and force him to go on an adventure to save his best friend. It is beautifully illustrated throughout, as well.

4.        Julia’s House for Lost Creatures by Ben Hatke (also the sequels Julia’s House Moves on and Julia’s House Goes Home) – Another fantasy series from Ben Hatke. It’s quite enjoyable, but I wouldn’t necessarily have stuck it on this "top ten" list if my kids hadn’t asked for this series to be read on repeat for several months. I find the story quite simple, about Julia building a house where all sorts of refugee fantasy creatures are welcome to make a home in, but something about it appeals to small children, I guess. The best thing about this series for me is that it gives a Fantasy-nerd adult a golden opportunity to teach his or her kids the names of all sorts of mythical creatures, as beautiful illustrations of dragons, mermaids, dwarves, ghosts and other colorful creatures are peppered throughout the books. Like, at two and a half years of age, my daughter already knew what a kraken was. I couldn't have been more proud.

5.        Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola – I had this book when I was a child and managed to find it on Amazon when I was hunting for books our nightly bedtime reading ritual. It’s about a wise old witch living in Italy with a magic pasta pot, and whose silly goose of a servant Big Anthony gets up into all kinds of shenanigans with it. I gotta say, this book is probably the funniest (for adults and kids once they get the joke!) book on this list and never gets old (trust me, I’ve read it about fifty times). It’s full of sly humor and lovely quaint language about an old Italian town with a “priest and the sisters of the convent”… LOL this phrase gets me every time. Bonus – after you read this, also pick up Strega Nona’s Magic Ring and Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons, among others, which are variations on the same theme and also very funny.

6.        Evergreen by Matthew Cordell– I especially love this book for being a classic “leaving home to go on a journey” adventure, The Hobbit-style, the theme of course being a geographical but also personal journey to conquer one’s fear. These types of adventure Fantasy stories have a special place in my heart. I definitely think that there aren’t enough children’s books where the hero starts in his hometown and embarks on a grand adventure. This is one of the only ones I have found. Other books sort of claim to do this, and many are excellently-illustrated so as to tickle the imagination and fascinate younger readers, but this one has an actual journey story that an adult will find interesting, as well. After I read this to my kids the first time, they immediately wanted to re-enact being the little squirrel Evergreen being sent off by her Mama on a mission through the forest, complete with putting on her hood and packing some food and telling herself to be brave before setting forth.

7.        Cornbread and Poppy by Matthew Cordell (also Cornbread and Poppy at the Carnival, Cornbread and Poppy at the Museum, and Cornbread and Poppy for the Win) – the first Cornbread and Poppy book, also by Matthew Cordell, is also happily, another “leaving home to go on a journey” adventure, and is therefore the best in the series in my book.  The others are also cute, being more humdrum life-type of adventures, but definitely appeal to my kids more than they do to me. Cornbread and Poppy are two mice best friends with vastly different personalities, Cornbread being the stuffy and conservative one and Poppy being free-spirited, reckless and brave, and how they interact and get each other out of trouble always makes for a fun read.

8.        The Barnabus Project by the Fan Brothers– more Science Fiction than Fantasy, but will still be enjoyed by a Fantasy-loving adult. Although this is, writing-style wise, an easier read than some of the other books up this list, I am putting it further down because my children didn’t appreciate it until they were above three years old. After they were able to comprehend what it was about, however, it was The Barnabus Project every night, sometimes twice a night. Barnabus is a half-mouse half-elephant project in a secret lab of the Perfect Pets store, and he and his friends are about to be “recycled”, and so he comes up with a plan to escape and save all his other “failed project” friends. It is a sweet, homey story with a happy ending, which is probably why it appeals to slightly older toddlers once they understand the high stakes plot (good luck trying to explain what "recycled" means in the context of this book, by the way) and can take comfort in the idea of working together as a team to escape.

9.        Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell by Helen Docherty and Thomas Docherty (also The Snatchabook by the same authors) – not being a great fan of the “rhyming” storybooks, as I haven’t found one that super appeals to me, I am nonetheless sticking this book onto this list because my kids ask for it to be read almost every night, and I appreciate it as an adult because the theme is about encouraging kids to read. I mean, let’s get educational for a sec! I can also enjoy things for proper grown-up reasons and not just because they have D&D and kraken references. My kids love Pirate Nell’s adventures on the pirate ship looking for treasure, and they love the little Snatchabook and his poor thieving of bedtime books as he has no one to read to him.

10.   The Very Peculiar Cow and Other Stories by Enid Blyton– I wrote about this in a previous post here . Small caveat, one or two short stories I’ve seen from other story collections from Ms. Blyton are a tiny bit problematic in this day and age, but this book in particular is GREAT, and the first two stories “The Very Peculiar Cow” and “The Land of Nowhere” are particularly lovely, the latter getting a special mention for being a “leaving home to go on a journey” tale that I think is actually unique to Enid Blyton’s many, many, short stories.