If you ever ended up in a fantasy world, what would be the one thing you would want to have? Potions from a wizard? A dragon companion? A unicorn to ride? How about a magical sword?
The kids in these books either have a magical sword, or are looking for one. If you’re a fan of fantasy books, you’ll know that they usually prove to be useful…if not right away, then eventually. If you love fantasy, one of these books is sure to fit your reading needs.
Our “5 Books…” lists include five books (usually with a couple extras) on a specific topic, with a short synopsis so you can decide if the story sounds like something you would like. Five Books–one old, one new, one popular with kids, one well-reviewed, and one staff favorite. (Can you guess which is which?)
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Nightingale by Deva Fagan
Lark is determined to escape her squalid life at Miss Starvenger’s boarding house, but she needs to find the coin to do it. Her grand scheme? To steal her fortune from the Royal Museum.
Unfortunately, her heist goes off the rails, and Lark ends up stealing a magical sword right out from under the nose of Prince Jasper, who’s none too happy to have his plans thwarted. Lark soon discovers that the Sword has a mind of its own, and has chosen her to be the next Nightingale, a fabled hero who must vanquish an ancient evil that is waking after centuries of sleep.
Working alone has its limitations, but relying on others after a lifetime of disappointments feels impossible. Still, Lark will need the help of her boarding house roommates if she wants to defeat the villainous forces that threaten to dismantle everything she holds dear.
The Demon Sword Asperides by Sarah Jean Horwitz
For the past two hundred years, the demon sword Asperides has led a quiet life. While his physical form has been tasked with guarding the body of an evil sorcerer, the rest of his consciousness has taken a well-earned vacation. That constant need to trick humans into wielding him (at the price of their very souls, of course) was rather draining.
Nack Furnival, on the other hand, is far from satisfied with his existence. Nack has trained since birth to be a brave and noble knight–but, unfortunately, he isn’t especially good at it. Determined to prove his worth, Nack needs a quest. And to complete that quest, he’ll need the one thing no knight can do without: a sword.
When an attempt to resurrect the evil sorcerer throws Asperides into Nack’s path, the demon sword can’t help but trick the boy into making a contract to become his new owner. And with the newly undead (and very, very angry) sorcerer on their trail, Asperides and Nack find themselves swept up in a bigger adventure than either of them bargained for: saving the world.
The Invisible Tower by Nils Johnson-Shelton (The Otherworld Chronicles #1)
Part of the spell has already been broken. The first stones have begun to crumble.
In Artie Kingfisher’s world, wizards named Merlin, fire-breathing dragons, and swords called Excalibur exist only in legends and lore–until the day his video game Otherworld springs to life. You are special, Arthur, says the mysterious message in his game. In one week’s time you will come to me at the it.
Cryptic clues lead Artie to a strange place called the Invisible Tower, where he discovers that nothing in his life is as it seems. Artie is none other than King Arthur, brought to life in the twenty-first century. Artie has won the battle in the virtual Otherworld–now the key to saving the real Otherworld lies in his hands as well.
Green dragons, hungry wolves, powerful sorcerers–suddenly Artie must battle them all as he wields Excalibur and embarks on a quest worthy of the Knights of the Round Table. With his sister, Kay, by his side, Artie steps into the Otherworld–straight toward his destiny. Magical swords REALLY come into play in book two, The Seven Swords. But read the whole series!
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Harry Crewe is a Homelander orphan girl, come to live in Damar from over the seas. She is drawn to the bleak landscape, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. She wishes she might cross the sands and climb the dark mountains where no Homelander has ever set foot, where the last of the old Damarians, the Free Hillfolk, live.
Corlath is the golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the legendary Lady Aerin. When he arrives in Harry’s town to ally with the Homelanders against a common enemy, he never expects to set Harry’s destiny in motion: She will ride into battle as a King’s Rider, bearing the Blue Sword, the great mythical treasure, which no one has wielded since Lady Aerin herself.
Legends and myths, no matter how epic, no matter how magical, all begin somewhere.
The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights by Alexandria Rogers
Ellie can’t help that she’s a witch, the most hated member of society. Determined to prove her worth and eschew her heritage, Ellie applies to the Fairy Godmother Academy–her golden ticket to societal acceptance. But Ellie’s dreams are squashed when she receives the dreaded draft letter to serve as a knight of King Arthur’s legendary Round Table. She can get out of the draft–but only if she saves a lost cause. Enter Caedmon, a boy from Wisconsin struggling with the death of his best friend.
He first dismisses the draft as ridiculous; magic can’t possibly exist. But when Merlin’s ancient magic foretells his family’s death if he doesn’t follow through, he travels to the knights’ castle, where he learns of a wicked curse leeching the knights of their power. To break the curse, Ellie and Caedmon must pass a series of deathly trials and re-forge the lost, shattered sword of Excalibur. And unless Ellie accepts her witch magic and Caedmon rises to become the knight he’s meant to be, they will both fail–and the world will fall to the same darkness that brought King Arthur and Camelot to ruin.
Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind by Misa Sugiura
All Momo wants for her twelfth birthday is an ordinary life–like everyone else’s. At home, she has to take care of her absentminded widowed mother. At school, kids ridicule her for mixing up reality with the magical stories her mother used to tell her.
But then Momo’s mother falls gravely ill, and a death hag straight out of those childhood stories attacks Momo at the mall, where she’s rescued by a talking fox . . . and “ordinary” goes out the window. It turns out that Momo’s mother is a banished Shinto goddess who used to protect a long-forgotten passageway to Yomi–a.k.a. the land of the dead. That passageway is now under attack, and countless evil spirits threaten to escape and wreak havoc across the earth.
Joined by Niko the fox and Danny–her former best friend turned popular jerk, whom she never planned to speak to again, much less save the world with–Momo must embrace her (definitely not “ordinary”) identity as half human, half goddess to unlock her divine powers, save her mother’s life, and force the demons back to Yomi.
Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Daystar has never seen his mother, Cimorene, actually perform magic. Nor has he ever known her to enter the Enchanted Forest in all the years they have lived on its edge. That is, not until a wizard shows up at their cottage the day after his birthday. Much to Daystar’s surprise, Cimorene melts the unsavory wizard. And the following day, she comes out of the Enchanted Forest carrying a sword. With that and a few supplies, she kicks him out of the house and into the Forest.
Two rules one must always remember when traveling in the Enchanted Forest: always be polite and never say yes to a favor until you know what you’re being asked to do. Daystar has no idea why he’s tromping around the forest fighting wizards and monsters with what is obviously a magical sword, but he keeps those rules in mind as he stumbles upon a quick-tempered firewitch and a baby dragon. Daystar realizes that the sword is leading him to adventures beyond what he ever imagined. This is a stand-alone conclusion to the Enchanted Forest Chronicles–although you might want to brush up on all Cimorene’s adventures before reading this one!
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And there you have it. A phalanx of swords–or sword books, anyway. If you’d like more, just type Excalibur into our Library Catalog, and see what else pops up. You’ll have enough reading to last you through the rest of the winter!
Check out these books, on display over the paperbacks, and see what catches your fancy.
As always, if you need help finding these or any other books, ask one of our librarians for help. We love pairing books and readers!
Happy Reading!
::kelly::
Pip Bartlett is still in small-town Georgia for the summer with her veterinarian aunt and her cousin Callie. Aunt Emma’s Cloverton Clinic for Magical Creatures is still a pretty exciting place to be, even after she and her new friend Tomas have solved the mystery of the fire-starting Fuzzles. (This is all in the first book, Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures.) Even though Pip is a little worried that all of the adventures of the summer are over, she’s soon proven wrong when she finds out that the Triple Trident–the most famous unicorn show in the country–is being held right in Cloverton!
The audio recording for Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Unicorn Training is absolutely delightful! There are two readers; one for Pip’s narration, and one to read the entries for Jeffrey Higgleston’s Guide to Magical Creatures.
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