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Gearing up my NaNo novel and I need to find all the fantasy works I can that involve children going from this world to a fantasy world, ideally written before 1978. Anything that would have been read to a child that included ordinary children traveling to unusual places.
I.e. Oz, Narnia, Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland. Any more?
[ October 30, 2007, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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I don't know about pre-1978, but here are a few more:
Pan's Labyrinth Mirrormask Neverwhere (not really children, though) The Neverending Story Captain N the Gamemaster (I couldn't resist!) Land of the Lost Darwath Trilogy (again, not children) Harry Potter Labyrinth
I'll try to think of more.
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Depending on your definition of "fantasy world":
Wrinkle in Time et al Half Magic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Great Glass Elevator Hansel and Gretel Bridge to Terebithia
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Chris, are you looking for a specific book or just books that fit a certain criteria? Also, how are you defining "fantasy world"? I have been using a fairly broad definition of children taken out of their ordinary world rather than just "geographical". For instance, Wat doesn't go anywhere, but magically experiences life underwater. Let me know if I should narrow the definition. So often in classical literature, people didn't go to a completely different world to experience fantasy, but went, for example, into a forest where out of the ordinary things happened.
Bridge of Terebithia was publishsed in 1977 so it should be about right date-wise.
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I'm taking the basic plot from my ScriptFrenzy script and going all novely with it. The idea is that years ago, a 7-year-old girl raised on fantasy makes all sorts of plans to have those sorts of adventures herself. She prepares, practices hiking, swimming, and basic broomstick-swordplay to get ready, and then is horribly let down when her closet remains a closet and no stuffed animals take her by the hand to go traveling. There will be mentions of her favorite stories - which she tends to treat more like casefiles and reference - throughout.
Traveling... Little Nemo! Missed that one...
Harry Potter would count, from my point of view, had it been written then. Any story where a child discovers a hidden land and has adventures fits, for my purposes. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory works nicely.
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Chris, are you writing my biography? I used to pack snacks in my backpack just in case I got transported somewhere.
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quote:Originally posted by Nighthawk: The Neverending Story
Books only? I can probably think of a few movies... Just not now.
Are you questioning the validity of that choice Nighthawk? Or just wondering if we can extend Chris's question to movies? Because the book fits the bill perfectly.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: These would be stories read to or by a 7-year-old girl in 1978 or thereabouts.
Xanth might squeak by, but Coraline definitely would not. Pity, it'd be perfect.
No Flying in the House is close. It's the right age and time, but she doesn't actually go to whatever fairy land her parents were in. Narnia and Oz and Alice and Peter Pan are probably your best bets.
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quote:Originally posted by Nighthawk: The Neverending Story
Books only? I can probably think of a few movies... Just not now.
Are you questioning the validity of that choice Nighthawk? Or just wondering if we can extend Chris's question to movies? Because the book fits the bill perfectly.
No, no for that choice, but for others. I was thinking of Labyrinth actually, but that was in 1986. Could've sworn it was earlier.
Never mind. Others seem to have this better covered than I.
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In spirit if not in letter, Escape to Witch Mountain, 1975 (from 1968 novel). The kids had to think about what to gather, and they were going to a place as supernatural as they found themselves to be.
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Edited to add: That inspired my hobo-bandana-on-a-stick method of escape storage. I also spent hours trying to stabilize a fan onto a laundry basket a'la Uncle Wiggly's flying contraption.
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Where the Wild Things Are (1963) for creatures to anticipate and dread. [Aha, Morbo already noted this one]
The Mural Master (1974) -- goodness, I loved this one. Tried to paint my way into another world for years.
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[Edited to add from another site: " US: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
"For those whoever fantasized about stepping into a picture, The Mural Master will doubtles provide frightening second thoughts"]
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Edited to add: two I have yet to track down titles for, but maybe someone here knows them --
- A girl finds a little shop sometimes there, sometimes not, and she gets magic random buttons
- A girl and her friend or sister (living in a junkyard?) find a maze. She goes right at all the turns and finds a kindly witch (here is where I learned how to make rose petal beads). The other child always goes left, the "sinister," and gets into dark magic trouble. I think the girl may have been African-American, if that helps pinpoint it.
quote:Two sisters find a route through their family's garden maze by sleeping on an herb pillow (which might have been an inheiritance. They sleep on different sides of the pillow, and one learns a route of all left turns, while the other learns a route of all right turns. When they get to the center of the maze they each meet a woman (witch?) one of whom is good and one of whom is bad. That's all I remember about the book, except that I loved it. --- Andre Norton, Lavender-Green Magic. When the Wade children go to live with their grandparents in the country, they explore an old garden maze that leads them back through time to a witch's cottage. --- This was a wonderful book! The heroine is the oldest child, and she's angry for a variety of reasons, not least that she must live at the junkyard with her grandparents. But what a junkyard! I wish -I- could live there! --- I read this book also, and the girls were sisters, I believe they were African American, and they lived with their grand parents who were caretakers of a garden, or an estate. The pillow itself had a maze like pattern sewn on it and a pleasant smell associated with lavender on one side and a smell of decay on the other. I also seem to remember that they found the pillow somewhere on the property. I don't recall the author or name of the book, but perhaps these clues can help you further your search. --- I just came across your "Stump the Bookseller" web site and finally, after years of searching, found out the title and author of Lavendar-Green Magic! I read that book when I was in 4th or 5th grade in the 70s, and the story stuck with me but nothing else had. I have been trying to discover what that book was for years, but did not discover it until I stumbled across your web site. Thank you so much!
Boy, that has bugged me off and on for decades.
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quote:I read this book over and over when I was about ten or eleven years old (1978-79), but it may have been older than that. I think I got it from either my school library or the local public library, but I can't find anything like it there now. It was about a girl who passed an abandoned old mansion on her way to and from school daily, and she sometimes would sit by the gates of the estate, hiding behind a bush or rock or something, imagining the people who lived there. One day she went in, and found seven (?) paintings of sisters who had once lived there, and I remember very vivid descriptions of their appearance and their dresses in the paintings. After the girl (I can't remember her name) sees the paintings, she can't stop thinking about them, and goes back, hiding and imagining again, and somehow she imagines so hard that she goes back in time to when the sisters were alive, and for some reason they take her in and then either won't let her leave, or she can't figure out how to leave. She finally goes home by getting out of the house and back to the rock/bush she always hid behind, and imagining that she was back home. Please help! This was a great book!
H34 is most definitely The Wicked, Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House. It used to be called The Wicked Pigeon Ladies in the Garden. I read it around the same time the person who wrote did, and there are seven sisters, one whose name is Maude. (Not Mauve). I looked it up in my copy at home, and I'm sure this is the one. I kept it because it was one of my all-time favorite Scholastic books when I was in elementary school. It's on the solved mysteries page because someone else was interested in this one, too. --- This book was in my classroom library about 30 years ago and may be from Scholastic. Lonely girl explores abandoned Victorian house with an overgrown fountain or statue in the yard. Inside she finds dusty oil portraits of seven sisters. At some point, the girl is thrust back in time and finds herself living with the family depicted in the portraits. The sisters are rather nasty, so the experience is unpleasant, but the protagonist has difficulty returning to the present. Any further information would be appreciated. Thanks. --- The book I am looking for is about a girl that goes back in time somehow. She ends up in a house with sisters that I think were witches or something. I don't remember much but I do remember several specific things from the book. In one part of the book the one of the sisters was staring at her and the little girl thinks she is staring right through her as though she doesn't exist. In another part the girl is having to put on these close and they are old with lots of buttons and she is having a hard time with the button hooks that they used back then. The last thing I remember is a part where the girl is in the kitchen and the older ladies, cooks perhaps, make a statement not to speak in front of the girl by saying "little pitchers have big ears." Sounds strange but I remember loving this book and would love to read it again. I think in modern times the girl passes by this old house in her neighborhood and somehow she goes back in time to live with its old inhabitants. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
etc. [Looks like lots and lots of people remember this one vividly]
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Daniel Pinkwater's Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars would be perfect if it hadn't come out in 1979.
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There was another one I can't remember right now about a boy that fell through a door in a hillside and went to another world. I think "door" or "tunnel" might have been in the title, but I'm having no luck on Google.
The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, according to my research, might fit.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Chris, are you writing my biography? I used to pack snacks in my backpack just in case I got transported somewhere.
Kate, I'd have liked you as much when we were kids as I do now. While I didn't do this exact thing, it sounds very much like something I'd have done.
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Tuck Everlasting? (1975): "Winnie Foster, stifled by the formality of her proper life, escapes into the woods only to get lost. She meets the Tuck family and learns their secret - a spring that holds the magic of everlasting life."
Tom's Midnight Garden? (1958): "Tom is bored and lonely when sent to stay with his uncle and aunt while his brother is ill, but one midnight when the clock chimes thirteen he makes an amazing discovery."
Miss Hickory? (1946) (Not travel to another world, but she could fiddle with little branches to make a Miss Hickory.)
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CaySedai, was that Magic Tears (1971) by Maurice Sendak's brother, Jack?
[Edited to add: Not likely. MT = "Determined to prove his courage, a young boy follows a strange dog and finds an enchanted forest." I think I've read the one you mention, though. Hmmm.]
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Heh. Old Tobacco Shop : A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure (1921) "After smoking, Freddie and some friends are magically transported to another world with comic pirates."
(Are you willing to have her scavenge cigarette butts, Chris? )
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I remember some (different) children's short stories about journeying to the moon, climbing on a rainbow, and dolls that come to life on one special day, but I haven't any titles. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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What about Harold and the Purple Crayon? It's a picture book aimed at very small children, but it's relevant.
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Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971 Disney movie***), which of course brings us to (maybe) The Magic Car/Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang (book 1964, movie 1968).
Chris, I love this thread. Please don't let it blink out.
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Edited to add: ***from Mary Norton's books, Magic Bed-Knob; or How to Become a Witch In Ten Easy Lessons and Bonfires and BroomsticksPosts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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There were other books written by Andre Norton in the Magic series that fit your requirements. I only remember reading Steel Magic (first published in the 1960's) as a child, but a look at Amazon suggests that there could be four or five good stories there.
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The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald gave me one of the worst nightmares of my life when I was about seven. I was walking down a staircase in our house when suddenly a door opened and I was dragged inside the dark cavern in between the floors by a goblin. Not nice. Anyway, if you're looking for a somewhat darker fantasy land (think Silver Chair Narnia), it might be interesting.
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The Farthest-Away Mountain, sort of. She doesn't exactly go into another world, but she does a bit, because her world is normal and the places she goes are magical and different.
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Hey! How could I forget!?
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971 Disney movie***), which of course brings us to (maybe) The Magic Car/Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang (book 1964, movie 1968).
For that matter, Mary Poppins...? Guess that and Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang might not count because kids going to the fairy tale world isn't the primary focus.
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Yeah. However, I recall reading the book on which CCBB was based while I was hospitalized as a child, and man, did I ever expect to see gnomes under every leaf of the potted plants. I was pretty sure if I chose the right car to go home in, I'd be set with friends forever.
That may well have been the medication, though. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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The animated part of Bedknobs and Broomsticks freaked me out so bad that I made my cousins leave the movie and take me back to my aunt and uncle's house. I believe it was because (other than the fact that I was only 6 or 7) the mixing of two worlds (the "real" and the animated) was just too unsettling.
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"In 1558, while exiled by Queen Mary Tudor to a remote castle known as Perilous Gard, young Kate Sutton becomes involved in a series of mysterious events that lead her to an underground world peopled by Fairy Folk whose customs are even older than the Druids' and include human sacrifice."
Probably not pre-1978 and I don't know if the main character will fit your definition of 'ordinary', since it's set in (almost) Elizabethan England, but it's a really interesting take on the idea of a magical world.
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What a great website, CT. I found a book I loved as a kid, The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks. I remembered she had a gnome statue that turnd out to be a real gnome and she thought gargoyles looked sad. Armed with those two bits of knowledge, I found it on the third page. Woot!
She's a native of the fantasy world, so it might not help you any, Chris, but she goes on one strenuous adventure.
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Glad it is of use. I am going to find that button story someday. I remember writing out a sequel and playing for hours with my mother's button tin, trying to find just the right ones to use in it.
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Also, I don't see why Harry Potter doesn't count. He was just as surprised as any of the Narnia kids...
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Chris is trying to write a story set in 1978, and he wants that setting as accurate as possible. HP is the sort of story he wants to reference, but it did not exist at that time in history, so it would not have been available to his character.
quote:Harry Potter would count, from my point of view, had it been written then. -- from Chris above
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Kate, I'd have liked you as much when we were kids as I do now. While I didn't do this exact thing, it sounds very much like something I'd have done.
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