Happy Monday! Time for Fantasy with Friends: all the prompts are hosted at Pages Unbound, if you’d like to join in. This week’s prompt is about tropes in children’s fantasy:
Is there a common trope or concept you see in childrenās fantasy stories that you think would be fun to see more of in adult fantasy?
I don’t actually read children’s fantasy or YA these days — at least not very often, except maaaaaybe a bit in graphic novel form — so I’m a little bit stumped here. If I think back to the tropes and concepts I loved in fantasy when I was a kid, I think a lot of it is being done in adult fantasy: I think fondly about stuff like The Worst Witch in the School, but then we have Emily Tesh playing around with a magic school in The Incandescent, and Caitlin Rozakis doing younger kids in a magic school inĀ The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, for instance. Maybe I’d love a bit less dark academia and more “holy crap I’m attending a magical school/university”?
As for portal fantasy, that’s always been around, I think, and e.g. Seanan McGuire’s playing around with it a lot inĀ Every Heart a Doorway et al, and again in Over the Woodward Wall etc. Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar books are a bit dated now, but lovely; more stuff that takes portal fantasy seriously and isn’t trying to be meta with it might be nice.
I suppose Brian Jacques’ Redwall books also count as fantasy and I loved them, but the plots weren’t super unique, only the fact that they were all animals. So I guess I don’t see a lot of that and I’d kinda like to: there is stuff like The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper and, though this is mystery rather than fantasy in every other sense, Juneau Black’s Shady HollowĀ books. So maybe we can see a bit more of that?
Kinda curious what other people will answer for this question, and what I’ve failed to think of!
Although I do still sometimes read MG fantasy, I brain completely blanked when I read this question and I forgot every fantasy I’d ever read. I think the ones that I wound up choosing mostly can be found in adult fantasy as well. I haven’t read Rozakis’ book yet, but it also focuses on parents in a magical school, right? Which is a unique angle to bring to the story, I suppose? I never heard of Brian Jacques but fantasy with anthropomorphized animals? That sounds like a lot of fun and it’s defo rarely, if ever, seen in adult fantasy (that I can think of anyway). I would read it though!
Dini @ dinipandareads recently posted…Fantasy with Friends: Childrenās Fantasy Concepts in Adult Fantasy
A whole book with just talking animals is definitely something I haven’t seen in adult. Though I’ve never been much of a talking animal kind of reader in general, so I haven’t even read most of the kid books that qualify there.
I like the idea I’ve seen circulating in a lot of the responses this week that adult books can lean a bit more into wonder. You make a good point about dark academia being popular in adult books, but is anyone really HAPPY they’re at a cool magic school doing cool magical things thinking how great life is because there is MAGIC? Not so much. I think we as adults need to be less jaded about things sometimes. š
Briana | Pages Unbound recently posted…Childrenās Fantasy Tropes That Should Make Their Way into Adult Novels (Fantasy with Friends)