Directed Reading in Children/Young Adult: Fantasy, taught by Bonny Becker (English 550 Course #2354)
“The realm of the fairy-story [fantasy] is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment and an ever-present peril, both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords… they open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories
In this course, we’ll study the themes, forms and conventions of fantasy. We’ll read the classics that set up those conventions and modern stories that break all the rules.
Residency:
The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, 1950 – 1955, any version
This is a seven book series but we will read five of the seven for the residency:
The Chronicles of Narnia (7-Book Box Set includes “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Prince Caspian,” “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” “The Silver Chair,” “The Magician’s Nephew,” ” The Horse and His Boy” and “The Last Battle”)
Required for MFA semester students only:
Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction (Literary Genres)
Tree and Leaf: Including “Mythopoeia”
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (February 5, 2001)
Phantastes
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, July 1981
The Well at the World’s End: Volume I
The Well at the World’s End: Volume II (Wildside Fantasy)
ISBN: 978-1587150883 (paperback Vol. 1)
ISBN: 978-1587150890 (paperback Vol. 2)
Be sure to type in the exact title or ISBN number. There’s another book with a very similar title.
The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. LeGuin, 1968 — Any editions of the first 4 books:
A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1)
The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 2)
The Farthest Shore (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 3)
Tehanu (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 4)
The Thief (The Queen’s Thief, Book 1)
Greenwillow Books, 2006
The Resurrection of Magic Series by Kathleen Duey
Books 1 and 2:
Skin Hunger (A Resurrection of Magic)
Sacred Scars (A Resurrection of Magic, Book 2)
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Wee Free Men (Discworld)
American Gods
