Fantasy

Fantasy is a fiction genre that often uses magic and other supernatural things as the main part of the story.

Wizards, imaginative lands, and talking animals are all possibilities in these stories.

A Bad Case of Stripes
David Shannon
Characters: Camila Cream, family, doctors, classmates
Setting: Home and school
Summary: Camila Cream is starting her first day of school and is worried about what her classmates with think- especially because she loves lima beans. During her worry, she starts to get dressed and tries on many outfits. Suddenly, she becomes covered in stripes and is forced to lay in bed and not go to school. The doctor gives her cream and tells her to go to school the nexy day. When she goes to school, her stripes turn from rainbow to stars and stripes, polka dots, checkers, etc., as her classmates catch on and start to call out designs to see on her. Doctors keep checking on her and giving her things, and the next day she’s shaped like a pill! Reporters follow her and therapists come to her and yet no one can stop her from changing. An old lady comes and says she can help, so she brings her lima beans. The lima beans bring her back to her true Camila self because she admitted that she loves them no matter what anyone else thought.
Theme: Be yourself

Charlotte's Web

E.B. White

  Characters: Fern, Wilbur, Charlotte, other main farm animals, other adults
Setting: Mostly in a barn
Summary: When 8 year old Fern wakes up one day, she hears that her father is going to kill the runt of their new pig litter. Fern is outraged, and begs her dad to save him, so he allows her to raise the pig herself- and names him Wilbur. When Wilbur gets bigger, Fern’s dad decides that he is sellable- Fern is sad, but her mom suggests that they sell him to her uncle so she can visit her pig whenever she wants, and so she does. Wilbur is lonely without being with Fern constantly, and he wants a friend in his new home but none of the animals want to be that friend- except Charlotte the spider. Wilbur learns from the sheep that he is going to be killed around Christmastime and starts to wail, but Charlotte promises to save him somehow. She devises a plan to write “Some Pig” into her web, and the next morning the farm workers notice it and think that their pig is very special, so special that soon the whole community knows about him. A few days later, she spins “Terrific” into the web, and then “Radiant” and people again are amazed. Meanwhile, Fern’s mother thinks that she is crazy because she hears animals talking, but the doctor says that she is perfectly normal. The two families take Wilbur and Charlotte and the rat as stowaways to the County Fair where they enter him in a pig judging contest. Wilbur doesn’t win the contest but wins a different prize of 25 dollars for being amazing and attracting so many people. When it is time to leave the fair, Charlotte says she cannot go because she is going to die soon because she is old. Having just laid eggs the day before, Wilbur begs the rat Templeton to bring them into the crate so that her babies will be taken care of. They save the eggs and the next day, in the empty fairgrounds, Charlotte dies. When winter is over, Charlottes 500ish eggs hatch, and wave happily to Wilbur. He cannot count them all but loves having so many friends, until one day they all catch a draft and all but 3 float away in the air, going to new destinations to live. The three spiders left- Joy, Aranea, and Nellie (who Wilbur named) stayed because they like the barn and Wilbur. The farmer never kills Wilbur, and he lives happily ever after, with each new generation of Charlotte’s children and grandchildren (and two or three of them stay with him every time).
Theme: Friendship, Gluttony, Selflessness

Chocolate Fever

Robert Kimmel Smith

Characters: Henry, parents, Mac, Sugar Cane

Setting: Home, school, on the road

Summary: Henry loves chocolate- it’s all he eats. One day he gets freckles everywhere in class and they grow and grow more as the day goes on. They start to grow into limps and they pop. His teacher takes him to the emergency room and the doctors are in disbelief. Tests reveal the dots are pure chocolate. Henry runs out of the hospital as everyone chases him. He stumbles into a schoolyard and kids make fun of him but he tells them he has chocolate fever and they’ll catch it if they touch him. He later gets on a diesel truck with a guy named Mac. They become friends because Mac is black and Henry is spotted so they both feel like outcasts. Men hijack the truck because they think it is full of expensive furs, but really its carrying chocolate bars. When the park, tons of dogs come out and attack them. The dogs knock the hijackers down and the dogs lick Henry as the police come. Mac and Henry deliver the candy to a man named Sugar Cane, who tells Henry the story of a boy just like him – him! Sugar Cane said  that the cure is vanilla pills. Henry decides that he has had too much of a good thing and goes home to sleep. When he wakes up he looks normal again and declines chocolate for breakfast- instead he puts cinnamon and gets hooked on that!

Theme: Too much of a good thing

Chrysanthemum

Kevin Henkes 

Characters: Chrysanthemum, parents, Victoria, Mrs. Twinkle

Setting: Mostly at school

Summary: When Chrysanthemum is born, her parents thought she was absolutely perfect. They give her a name to show just how amazing she is, and she LOVES it until she is old enough to go to school. On her first day, her classmates make fun of her (especially Victoria- who is the biggest bully), saying that her name is too long, it doesn’t fit on a nametag, and that she’s just a flower. When she arrives home, she is sad and embarrassed by her name and wishes it were different. Her parents tell her that her classmates are jealous and that she is beautiful. The next day does not get much better though- the students even say she looks like a flower now. When the class meets their music teacher, Mrs. Twinkle, she assigns them roles for the musical- and Chrysanthemum is assigned to be a daisy, which the students laugh at her even more for. When the music teacher hears this, she says that she has a long flower name too- her name is Delphinium! The class is astounded and immediately wish they, too, had flower names. Mrs. Twinkle says she loves the name Chrysanthemum and will name her baby that if it’s a girl! In the epilogue, the musical goes great, Victoria messes up, and little Chrysanthemum is born.

Theme: Love yourself, Don’t let others put you down

 

Epossomondas

Coleen Salley

Characters: Epossomondas, Aunt, Mama

Setting: Outside, at home

Summary: Epossomondas is a possom who takes things literally, and who has a human aunt and mama. His aunt gives him cake to bring to his mama, but he squishes it. His mama tells him he should have carried it on his head. So the next day, he gets butter from his auntie, and he carries it on his head back to his mom- but she says he should have used his hands cooled in water. These antics continue with a puppy and bread. Mama gets frustraed with him and goes to aunties herself. She tells him to be careful stepping on pies while she goes out, so he very carefully steps on all of them!

Theme: Listen carefully, Communication

Frog and Toad are Friends

Arnold Lobel

Characters: Frog, Toad

Setting: Outdoors

Summary: In “Spring”, Frog goes to Toad’s house and wakes him up since he has been sleeping since November and it is now April. Toad wants to keep sleeping until May so when he sleeps Frog tears the pages off the calendar until it says May and Toad happily gets up. In “The Story” Frog is sick, and asks Toad to tell him a story. Toad bangs his head against the wall, walks around, and pours water on himself but he cannot think of one. Frog feels better so Toad lays down and Frog tells him a story about everything Toad just did. In “A Lost Button”, the friends go for a walk when Toad realizes one of his buttons has fallen off. They search for it but they keep finding different buttons. When Toad gets home he sees that his button is on the floor in his house so he sews all the other buttons onto a jacket for Frog as a thank you for looking. In “A Swim” the friends go for a swim in the river. Toad does not want to be seen out of the water because he thinks he looks funny in his bathing suit. When it is time to get out, all of the other animals in the area want to see Toad looking funny so they wait and wait and wait until he finally gives up and gets out and they make fun of him in his suit, but he proudly walks away. Lastly, in “The Letter”, Toad is sad that he never gets mail, but waits for it every day. Frog runs home and writes him a letter and gives it to a snail to deliver it. Frog urges Toad to keep checking every day but he asks why, so Frog tells him that he wrote him a letter! Toad receives the letter after 4 days and is happy to have it.

Theme: Being friends

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.K. Rowling

  Characters: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Prof. Snape, Dumbledore, Prof. Mcgonagall, Neville, Draco Malfoy, muggle relatives, other Hogwarts students

Setting: Real world and Hogwarts

Summary: When Harry’s parents are killed by evil Lord Voldemort, the magic community brings him to his muggle aunt and uncle Dursley’s home to grow up as a normal child- for he has not only survived, but he was strangely unable to be killed. Ten years later, Harry’s life is miserable- he is forced to live under the stairs and is hated by everyone he lives with and by classmates that know his horrible cousin Dudley. The family especially hates him when unexplainable things happen around him, like his hair growing back, or a big snake escaping from the zoo right in front of them. One day, a letter comes addressed to Harry, in the cupboard under the stairs, and his relatives steal it from him, freak out, and move him to a small bedroom. The next day another appears that they take as well, and the days after that letters come by the dozens. The day Harry turns 11, the giant Hagrid appears to the Dursleys and Harry and gives him his Hogwarts letter and is astonished to find that he knows nothing of his wizardry, family, or magic world. Hagrid takes him shopping in the magical world and soon hops on a train to go to Hogwarts, meeting Ron and Hermione. All three are sorted into Gryffindor. The three of them, and Neville, get locked out of their dorms one night after being set up for a fight, and as they run away from getting in trouble, they come upon a forbidden room with a three headed dog guarding something. After Harry becomes the youngest Quiddich team member because of his awesome skills, Ron and Harry save Hermione from a mountain troll and although they were completely annoyed by her before, they all becomes friends. Harry gets his fathers old invisibility cloak and is able to see his parents in a mirror he finds. The three learn that the monster dog is guarding the sorcerer’s stone and Snape is after it. They lose house points for being caught in the middle of the night to send a dragon away. Harry realizes that Hagrid’s dragon winning was a way of learning about the sorcerer’s stone hiding place magic, and the 3 try to warn Dumbledore that someone is going to break in that night, but he is not there. The three of them put the 3 headed beast to sleep, unhook vines, catch a flying key, win a chess game, walk past an already knocked out troll, and walk through fire with potions- the latter of which Harry is left to do on his own. He encounters Prof. Quirrel and realizes that Snape is not the bad guy, he is, and Snape had been trying to protect Harry. He fights Quirrel for the stone and Voldemort becomes in Quirrel’s body, and Harry wakes up days later to Dumbledore saying that he saved Harry just in time and that the stone has been destroyed. Dumbledore awards Gryffindor points to the 3 friends which tie them with Slytherin, then 10 points to Neville for bravery, which makes them win the House Cup for the first time in years. Then they go away for the summer and Harry goes back to his muggle home, excited to use magic on Dudley.

Theme: Bravery, Imagination, Humility, Dangers of desire

Interrupting Chicken

David Ezra Stein 

Characters: Chicken, Papa

Setting: Chicken’s house

Summary: Papa puts Chicken to bed by reading her a story. He starts out with Hansel and Gretel but Chicken interrupts, trying to save the children. Papa is annoyed, and reads Red Riding Hood- Chicken interrupts this as well. Then they read Chicken Little, but that is also interrupted and Chicken still isn’t asleep. Papa is out of books so he lays down and tells Chicken to write her own book, and as she is doing so Papa falls asleep.

Theme: Manners, Imagination

 

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub

Audrey Wood

Characters: King Bidgood, his court

Setting: Palace, bathtub

Summary: King Bidgood refuses to get out of the bathtub! He wants to have battles, eat lunch, fish, and dance all while staying in there! His court constantly tries to get him out, but it only ends up with them doing the activity in the bathtub with him! The royal page refrains, “Oh who knows what to do?!”  before each trial and failure to get him out. Everyone in the castle helps by the end, until the page finally decides to just pull the plug out of the tub, forcing the King to get out. The illustrations in the book are also very awesome!

Theme: Teamwork, Cooperation, Perseverance

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Robert C. O'Brien

Characters: Mrs. Frisby, the children, Nicodemous, Justin, other rats

Setting: A farm
Summary: The rats of Nimh- a lab project to increase rat intelligence- escape the lab and come to live on a farm where they have stolen food and energy for a very long time and want to plan their own community. Mrs. Frisby, a mouse, and her family need to move their home or else they will die because the youngest son is unable to leave. She enlists the rats to help her and she learns about their history and how they connect to her late husband, and the two sets of animals help save each other.

Theme: Working together

 

 Skeleton Meets the Mummy

Steve Metzger

Characters: Skeleton, Mummy

Setting: Halloween night

Summary: Sammy skeleton wants to go trick-or-treating, but his mom makes him take soup to his grandma bones first. As he takes it, he gets scared of sounds he hears and tries to reassure himself. But something was behind him indeed- a mummy! The mummy chases him but Sammy decides to be brave so he pulls the mummy’s cloth until he unravels, showing it’s actually his best friend Derek the skeleton! Derek was just scaring him and then they both take the soup to his grandma before they go out.

Theme: Even skeletons get scared, Bravery, Friendship

Swimmy

Leo Leonni

Characters: Swimmy

Setting: UnderwaterSummary: A small, different, black fish survives an bigger fish attack on his family of red fish. Dealing with this, he swims all over the ocean seeing the amazing creatures. He meets another school of small fish and teaches them to swim like one big fish so they, too, can explore without being eaten. They successfully trick the big fish and can scare them away to enjoy their lives.

Theme: Leadership, Being different is okay

 

The Adventures of Captain Underpants

Dav Pilkey

  Setting: School, around town

Characters: George, Harold, Mr.Krupp/Captain Underpants

Summary: George and Harold are best friends who sometimes draw comics which they call Captain Underpants. The principal Mr. Krupp hates the comics and dislikes the boys and wants to bring them down. The boys do tons of pranks at the football game like putting soap in the instruments and pepper in the pompoms. They hope to not be found out, but Mr. Krupp calls them into the office the next day with video evidence that they did it. He blackmails them with the video, saying he will show it to the football team for worse punishment from them than just expelling them. The boys buy a hyptno-ring and use it on the principal so that he won’t make their life horrible. They replace the tape with a little sister’s dance video and then turn Krupp into their comic book character. He goes through the town trying to stop evil and the boys get into a lot of action situations throughout the town. There are small flip-books for “action scenes” but they’re not long enough to enjoy. When the boys defeat a robot that came for Captain Underpants, they escape and see that Captain Underpants has tied up Dr. Diaper. They snap the principal back into his former self and he gets back on with his blackmail. He shows the video to the team, who actually love it, and change their name to the purple dragon singalong friends. Anytime Krupp hears a certain noise, he snaps back into the superhero and they have to constantly watch him.

Theme: Think about what you do, Working together

 

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Setting: The ruins of North America, known as Panem, in the future

Characters: Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Prim, Hunger Games tributes, Haymitch, others

Summary: During the annual Hunger Games where 24 kids are put in an arena to fight to the death until one winner emerges, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her little sister’s place. Her natural fighter emerges and she fights to come back to her town, while saving the other tribute from her district, and showing hate towards the Capitol.

 

The Little Engine that Could

Watty Piper

Characters: The toys, the little engine that could

Setting: Outside

Summary: The train is carrying tons of toys and snacks for little boys and girls on the other side of a mountain. Suddenly, the train cannot go on, no matter how hard she tries. Some of the toys come out and ask a shiny, new engine to pull them over the mountain, but he says that he is too good for them because he carries passengers. Then another engine goes by and they ask him too, but he says that he is too good for them as well because he pulls big freight. A third engine comes and they ask him too, but he is rusty, old, and tired. Finally, a small, blue engine comes and they ask her. She says that she has never been over the mountain, but after seeing the tears in the toys’ eyes, she agrees to do it. She says “I think I can I think I can” over and over as she slowly goes up the mountain. As they reach the top and start go down the other side, the toys all cheer and she thinks, “I thought I could!”

Theme: Perseverance, you can do anything

 

The Magic Hat

Mem Fox

  Characters: magic hat

Setting: Outside

Summary: A magic hat floats around and appears in a town. It lands on heads, toads, baboons, kangaroos, bears, and giraffes until a wizard appears and says stop and takes the hat because it makes magic wherever it is at.

Theme: Imagination

 

The Magic School Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs

Joanna Cole

Characters: Mrs. Frisby and class

Setting: Our time at school, in the dinosaur ages

Summary: It’s visitors day at school and all the kids decorated the class with dinosaurs. They are invited to a dinosaur dig and leave on the magic school bus. They learn about paleontologists and fossils. Then they get back on the bus and it turns into a time machine, where they go back into the early days to the dinosaur time. The kids see and learn about them and keep going back on the bus to go to different periods like the Jurassic and Triassic. In each period, they learn about the dinosaurs and even see fights. Eventually they go back home. Throughout this book, the students talk in dialogue bubbles about dinosaur facts and the sides of the pages have more facts too!

Theme: Dinosaurs