Category Archives: Fantasy

358S: Boy Switches Places with His Parallel Universe Version

I need help finding a series I read about 10 years ago. I’ve been trying to find it for the last 6 months and have now made it a mission to find the series.
This is what I think I remember:
The books were in a public library in the young adult fiction section. It was about a boy that was transported to a parallel universe. I think it was a trilogy and one of the books had a purple-ish cover.I honestly don’t know if I’m remembering this right or mixing with another series.
The parallel universe version of him was then transferred to his world, so they basically switched places. They ended up meeting each other/themselves at the very end. The other universe he was transported to had knights I think? It was a fantasy world and different from his.

358P: Originally Reluctant Woman Frees Prince

I have used several other places, and have had no luck with this one.

It is a high fantasy type of book that takes place entirely in the fantasy world. It definitely seems like the beginning of a series. I vaguely remember it being written by a female Australian author and I believe it was published in the mid-later 1990s or early 2000’s. It was a trade paperback that I checked out from the library. The cover was a simple cover, not a complicated/traditional fantasy one.

It starts with a young woman working in her family’s inn/tavern and then she gets swept up with a prince who later gets imprisoned and who she frees at the end. At the beginning, she has a bad opinion of him, but then she travels to some place where he is getting ready for battle I think and gets to know him better. I believe there is magic based on elemental powers. I remember that she has to work with elemental beings, and they start learning to work together. At the end she ends up going to the castle where the prince is imprisoned and she frees him.

358A: Object Found in Attic Makes Inanimate Objects Come to Life

I hope you can help me figure this out. I don’t remember much except it involved several siblings who find an object in the attic of their relative (aunt, grandparent, unsure) that brings inanimate objects to life – one was a lion skin rug, I think. The object might have been an orb but honestly I could be confusing it with Eilonwy’s ball from The Black Cauldron.
I do remember one of the characters talking about being able to make a wish on a piebald horse if you didn’t remember that you could make a wish. Does this ring any bells? I hope you can help.

357V: Traveling between the realms

It’s been bugging me for a while. This is a young adult book from my childhood likely read between 2006 and 2010 from my school library.
It’s a fantasy book and the cover has flames on it with (I think) electric blue writing on it (like literal lightning font).
My very rough description: there’s a group of people traveling between realms (sort of like heaven and hell).
I’m so sorry that’s all I have!

353O: Dragons Galore

I’m looking for a kids book about dragons. I don’t remember much, but it was heavily illustrated with all kinds of different types of dragons. It read more like non-fiction, sort of like a simple encyclopedia of various types of dragons. I remember one dragon, in particular, that looked like a snake. I don’t think it had any sort of plot. It was a hardcover and was laid out in a landscape, rather than portrait manner. I was in 4th and 5th grade when I checked it out of the library about 1000 times. That was around 1985-1986.

353M: Circus Boy Rescues Chinese Girl, Witch Heals Her Bound Feet

Looking for a children's fantasy novel about a poor boy working at a circus who rescues a Chinese girl with bound feet who's a prisoner in one of the attractions. Takes place in medieval Europe, I think. They're on the run and get rescued by a witch or an old woman who heals the girl's feet by breaking the bones and then teaches her how to walk again. The boy and the girl go on a quest together. There may be a dragon involved. Wasn't a picture book and it had chapters. Read it between 2002 and 2008, but was probably published way earlier. Wish I had more info, thanks!

352G: The Symbol in the Magical Wall

I read this book in 2009 or 2010. I believe it was considered a young adult book but it was a good reading level for me in 6th grade. The book seems so scattered and has gotten worse in my memory over the years so excuse me if I seem to jump around in the story.

The cover I believe had a sort of symbol that is important in the book. I remember the cover being mostly red and black but couldn’t say for sure.
The main character is a boy around 12 who is in the foster system (?) and comes to live with this old woman who is introduced as talking to the TV (I believe Jeopardy) and talks to the TV as if the person on the show Is talking directly to her (indicating schizophrenia), but the TV actually changes from the show to sending her secret code within the show (?).
Somehow they end up in her house deep in the woods, the child service worker leaves and the boys weird gets weird (in like a magical seance) and he likes to walk around the woods surrounding the property and find a magical wall of some kind that the symbol then becomes important in. The story gets so back and forth from there it would be impossible to explain. This book somehow helped me a lot in the part of life I was in and I really just need to read the series again.

352B: Children travel to other worlds with animals

It starts with some kids (possibly siblings, there are two or three kids) in, I think, a shop, a thrift, antique, or pawn shop, with no adults around and they are visited by these creatures. One is like a bear that talks in a phonetic southern-US style accent and one is like a dragonfly whose words allruntogetherlikethis. When I say “like” a bear and dragonfly, I think they were described as similar to these but not exactly the same. I think the creatures come from the kids interacting with an object in the shop.
They visit other worlds or dimensions and at one point they’re in a desert and tiny bugs swarm them and try to get to the moisture in the kids’ eyes and mouths so they have to keep them shut tight. They have to figure out how to outwit the antagonist without opening their eyes or mouths.
That’s all I remember. It was most likely written in the 70s or maybe 80s but definitely no later than mid-nineties. I read it around 2000 and it seemed old at the time.
I’ve spent so long looking for this because I just don’t believe no one else has read this and I think about it every time a gnat flies in my face! I feel like I’m in another dimension myself!!

351X: Part comic/part written book series maybe called ‘Freak’?

I’d really like some help finding a comic I haven’t read since I was in school in 2001. I’ve tried googling it with no luck. I swear it was called ‘F.R.E.A.K’ or something. The front cover had a teenager jumping in the air clutching/firing lightning from his hands. There were two issues I think, one with a blue background cover and one with a green background.

It was about some teenager who stumbles into an alternate dimension (after getting beaten up in the street by hooligans) and meets a bipedal lioness who can talk. There were other animal people, and they were at war.

The lions were mostly police, and some of the characters had psychic powers and they were referred to as ‘TK’s’. The main bad guys were a vulture woman and a fat guy with angel wings. They used guns and were rivals. The angel wings guy says in one panel that ‘I like to keep ahead of the competition’ or something similar, and it shows a severed head on a spike.

The lionnes jams a gun with her mind as the teenager is about to be shot, but Angel wing guy thinks the teen did it and that he’s a ‘TK’.

There were also lizard people and monkey people. One of the lizard people pretends to be prison guard to help rescue the teenager. It was partially comic and partially written story. I remember it being very violent and adult oriented. Please does anyone know what it is? Any help would be most appreciated