My Children's Appendix N: a fantasy book list

I just spent a lovely, hectic summer week chasing fulltime after my kids. They have grown so much, and I wanted to share a small part of their arc, the one where my partner and I introduced them to one of our joys—reading books. We both love to imagine other worlds through books. When our kids finally started reading in earnest, we wanted to pass on our love of fantasy to them, without dictating what they read. So we cast books like breadcrumbs in their paths, and tempted them closer. Picking the right breadcrumbs was hard, iterative work, and I wanted to share some of the books that have resonated thus far with my elementary-school age kids. Success has been listening to them construct their imaginary worlds from a rich scrapheap of stories: I hope they will write an inspiring Appendix N one day. Here are the fantasy books that are still in their library, a partial but hopefully helpful list for those transitioning to chapter books and novels and wanting to fantasy-pill their kids.…