You know when you’re having a stressful time, and you just need that hit of nostalgia? Yeah, me too. And thanks to my job as Arts Editor, I can search for that nostalgia in my childhood favorite books and shows and call that research for my next article.
In the spirit of (ahem) research, I chose to revisit some of my favorite childhood fantasy book series over the past few months. At the start of this journey, I realized that four series’ stood out to me as my childhood favorites. These were books that I read over and over, that I could quote from memory, that provided the themes for birthday parties and Halloween costumes, and that still bring the greatest feeling of nostalgia all these years later. Those series were (in no particular order): “Percy Jackson,” “Harry Potter,” “Fablehaven” and “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles”.
Once I’d come to this conclusion, I realized that discussing all four might make a fun article. So I went back to them in more depth. I reread some books in their entirety. I skimmed others, occasionally noting elements that stood out to me. And I listened to some as audiobooks, occasionally spacing out, only to refocus and think “wow, I totally forgot how that happened!”
So how can I even reevaluate or even rate these series? I decided on a multi-pronged approach. For each series, I’ve provided a brief review followed by a ranking of each book in the series (this is my current-day ranking, not my childhood ranking). Finally, I’ve given each series a nostalgia score, reflecting more the feelings of my inner child rather than anything resembling an objective critique.
Okay, enough yapping. Let’s get to the reviews. I’ve presented them in alphabetical order by author’s last name because I couldn’t really think of a better way to go about this.
“Fablehaven” by Brandon Mull
For the life of me, I can’t work out why “Fablehaven” is so obscure. On its face, it has everything one could possibly want from a middle grade fantasy series, and yet I barely see anyone talk about it. I did a sweep of a couple local bookshops out of curiosity, and none were selling “Fablehaven.” Obscure it might be, but “Fablehaven” was a series I absolutely loved as a kid, and I quite enjoyed rereading it as well.
The concept of “Fablehaven” is a secret society dedicated to maintaining “preserves,” kind of like wildlife reservations for magical creatures and beings. This means fairies in the garden, and naiads in the lake. It also means trolls in a cliff, zombies with a regular feeding routine, dragons that can paralyze you with fear with just a glance and an ancient and powerful demon just hanging out in a cave. Our protagonists are two siblings, Kendra and Seth, who start off the series aged 14 and 11 respectively. They are sent to stay with their grandfather while their parents take a 17 day cruise (because their other set of grandparents just died … or did they???), and quickly discover that their grandfather manages one of these magic preserves (known as Fablehaven). Then there’s more chaos involving a witch, a demon on the loose and the fact that their grandmother has been turned into a chicken.
The first book is pretty straightforward, but the series gets quite complex moving forward. By book two, the overarching plot has been introduced. Five preserves, including Fablehaven, have been kept secret from the rest of the magical creatures community because each contains a super-powerful artifact (one allows for time travel, another makes you immortal, etc.). If the five artifacts are brought together, they will open Zzyzx (pronounced zih-zicks, per the audio book), the demon prison. Which means the end of the world. Our heroes join the Knights of the Dawn, an organization combating the evil Society of the Evening Star, who want the prison open. The rest of the series follows this conflict, as Kendra and Seth need to recover artifacts, protect Fablehaven and ultimately do battle with a horde of demons. They gain special powers, make and lose friends and nearly die several times in the process.
While this feels like a lot of concepts to keep track of, “Fablehaven” does a good job pacing the reader, slowly expanding the world with each book – at least until the end of book four. The fifth and final book starts moving a lot faster, and things get rushed (a major love interest is introduced halfway through, and a key element of the lock to Zzyzx is introduced in the last third). However, one thing that always remains under control are the rules to the magical world, the personalities of our major characters, and the steadily increasing stakes. It’s exciting to read about how Kendra and Seth wiggle their way out of various impossible situations, even when some are rather contrived magical obstacle courses.
What really makes “Fablehaven” stand out is its commitment to an extraordinary number of plot twists and key betrayals. Some are easy to predict, but others are shocking. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the kids who read this end up having trust issues for a couple months after finishing the series. I also love how well the series portrays the sibling relationship between Kendra and Seth. They’re a 14 year old and an 11 year old in extraordinary circumstances, but they interact just in the way you’d imagine an older sister and younger brother with that age difference. This series also really hammers home the point that they are children, and the adults show a level of care for them that’s quite refreshing for middle grade fantasy.
If I had one other critique, it would be that Mull’s writing style is a bit over-elevated for my tastes. Sometimes it felt like he put certain lines through a thesaurus, and I’d be glaring at the page saying “who even talks like that?” It didn’t bother me as a kid, but it definitely stood out on reread.
Apparently, “Fablehaven” has a sequel series called “Dragonwatch.” It came out after I’d aged out of “Fablehaven,” so it has no nostalgia value to me, but I did genuinely enjoy revisiting “Fablehaven” and if I’m in the mood for middle grade fantasy I haven’t yet read, maybe I’ll give “Dragonwatch” a try.
Book ranking: #1: Rise of the Evening Star (Book 1), #2: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary (Book 4), #3: Grip of the Shadow Plague (Book 2), #4: Fablehaven (Book 1), #5: Keys to the Demon Prison (Book 5)
Notalgia value: 7/10
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” by Rick Riordan
Out of the series on this list, I think “Percy Jackson” is the one that has captured the Gen Z imagination most. In my experience, it’s also been the one the most socially acceptable to be obsessed with long after one has passed the target age range for these novels. The Rick Riordan-verse has expanded to five separate series, but to keep things simple, I’m going to be primarily focusing on the original five-book saga.
“Percy Jackson” relies exclusively on Greek mythology for its fantastical element. In fact, most of the first series is spent retelling or reimagining various Greek myths. Out of the four series I’m reviewing, I think “Percy Jackson” has by far the most educational value.
Our hero, Percy, is a classic troubled kid. Diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, he’s been kicked out of every school he has attended, he sees things nobody else can, and he’s never met his father. All of this is explained by the fact that he’s a demigod, and the son of the Greek god Poseidon. Percy ends up at Camp Half-Blood, a riff on the quintessential American summer camp, except it’s designed to train and protect demigods. The rest of the series is spent on stopping the Titan Kronos from destroying Mount Olympus.
One thing I was startled by in revisiting Percy Jackson was how much less nostalgia I held for this series than I anticipated. I read it so many times as a kid I thought I’d be bowled over with a nostalgia wave, but it was more like a ripple. I enjoyed revisiting a childhood favorite, but it felt like some of the magic had well and truly worn off. I think this can mostly be put down to Rick Riordan’s writing style, which is decidedly middle grade compared to the other three series on this list. The humor that I loved so much in middle school now felt a little grating, and the way the dialogue and inner monologues were constructed felt more simplistic compared to the other three series. There’s certainly nothing wrong with writing specifically for your intended audience, but for me, it meant the “shelf life” of Percy Jackson was more limited. In my opinion, it doesn’t hit that “family friendly” sweet spot of the best middle grade fantasy, where children and adults alike will enjoy it.
That critique out of the way, “Percy Jackson,” is still a very good series. Percy is a very easy protagonist to root for, and you really feel him grow up over the course of the series. Annabeth and Grover are excellent secondary leads. And the way “Percy Jackson” reimagines Greek mythology for modern day teen readers is nothing short of inspired. Riordan is able to cover a lot of ground in five books in terms of the number of myths and legends he’s able to incorporate. His background as a teacher is evident, but the books never dissolve into exposition dumps, and they take “show don’t tell” very seriously. Some adaptations, like Circe changing men into guinea pigs instead of pigs, are quite funny. Other adaptations, like the way Riordan approaches the story of Daedalus and the Labyrinth, have great dramatic effect. Reimagining the Greek gods and myths for the modern day is no small feat, but Riordan pulls it off with seeming ease.
If I had to criticize anything about the concept of the book itself, it would be that the concept of a secret fantastical world hidden in a summer camp is a little harder to buy than the secret society concept of “Fablehaven” or the boarding school set-up of “Harry Potter”. The temporary nature of summer camp is constantly in conflict with Riordan’s insistence that demigods are in constant danger in the mortal world, and his attempts to justify this feel half-baked. The concept of a demigod summer camp is charming, but it struggles to hold up, and this becomes even more pronounced when the much more sophisticated Camp Jupiter/New Rome set up is introduced in “The Heroes of Olympus.” To be honest, I think Camp Half-Blood is the weakest of all the ways Riordan has introduced hidden mythological worlds within our own over the course of all his series. But maybe that’s just me.
There’s a lot to love about “Percy Jackson,” from its charismatic hero to its creative adaptation of Greek mythology. The writing didn’t hold up for me now that I’m older than the target reader, and the concept isn’t perfect, but the exciting stories and character arcs do a lot to lift this series. And it’s hard not to love it as a kid.
Book ranking: #1: The Last Olympian (Book 5), #2: The Battle of the Labyrinth (Book 4), #3: The Lightning Thief (Book 1), #4: The Sea of Monsters (Book 2), #5: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3)
Nostalgia value: 6/10
“Harry Potter” by JK Rowling
With everything we now know about JK Rowling, it was tough for me to work out how to even approach this series. After tentatively revisiting it, I found that I was able to separate her transphobia from the series, mostly because as a mass-marketed kids series written in the 1990s, any discussions of queerness were pretty much impossible from the get-go, meaning there wasn’t really any opportunity for transphobia to present itself. Ironically, Harry and Ron actually spend a lot of time in a girls’ bathroom in book two, but they’re there to brew an illegal potion rather than to assault women.
The ‘90s-ness of the series does show at times. It’s true that the lack of diversity in the main cast is a criticism that can be leveled at all four series in this article (all of which were written between the eighties and the aughts) and is thus probably more of a “product of the time” consideration. There’s a bit of not-like-other-girls syndrome, but that too lines up with the mainstream feminism of the era. What stood out to me most in terms of “Harry Potter” being dated actually wasn’t a social justice concern. Instead, it was the question of how the children of today will react to the magic in the book, since it doesn’t seem quite as impressive in the age of the Internet, email and AI.
Now, onto the content of the books themselves. “Harry Potter” is so ubiquitous it hardly needs an introduction, but just in case, here’s a brief one: Harry Potter, an orphan raised by his abusive aunt and uncle, discovers he’s a wizard at age 11 and goes off to Hogwarts, a boarding school for British witches and wizards. There, he learns that he’s destined to defeat Voldemort (the most dangerous dark wizard of all time) and the seven-book series sees Harry come of age, defeat various obstacles (aided by his best friends Ron and Hermione), and ultimately leads to the final confrontation with Voldemort.
When it comes to my own experience, I listened to the audiobooks and read these novels so many times as a kid (far more than any of the other series on this list) and hadn’t revisited them for years, so when I did, the nostalgia hit me like a truck. The writing style of the series holds up for children and adults alike, and dodges both the thesaurus-y nature of Mull and the juvenile humor of Riordan. It made “Harry Potter” a more pleasant reading experience overall, and I actually found myself catching new ideas and meanings that I hadn’t noticed as a kid.
If you step back and think critically about the world of “Harry Potter,” you can poke a lot of holes in it. Some things seem to happen mostly because the plot will be better if they do, there are inconsistencies across the series, some reveals pay off better than others, and some character deaths are more impactful while others feel superfluous. But when actually reading the book, I was never tempted to start poking these holes. This only happened if I was thinking about the story rather than actively engaged in it. I think a lot of this can be put down to great writing in terms of sentence and chapter construction, and an extraordinarily well-developed supporting cast. “Harry Potter” has by far the largest cast of characters out of these four series, and even more minor players have fully fleshed out personalities and motivations. While some of the worldbuilding can be sloppy, the fact that this world is inhabited by such a well-realized cast of characters means you forget about these problems when actually reading the series.
I also enjoyed all the sly references to adolescence and the experience of being a teenager in school. The fourth book has a silly subplot around asking someone out to the school dance, and the apparition lessons in book six are a fun parody of driving school. The representation of teenagerhood throughout the series is spot on, and I think I actually got more out of these elements upon revisiting the series with my teenage years behind me.
So while the plot isn’t perfectly smooth and the series can feel dated, I did really enjoy going back to “Harry Potter.” I completely understand those who don’t want to – it was hard to reconcile my childhood love of the series with my disgust at JK Rowling’s transphobia. “Harry Potter” is not a perfect series by any means, and I don’t deny the nostalgia factor is real, but it was interesting to return to it with a new perspective.
Book ranking: #1: The Deathly Hallows (Book 7), #2: The Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3), #3: The Order of the Phoenix (Book 5), #4: The Philosopher’s Stone (Book 1), #5: The Goblet of Fire (Book 4), #6: The Chamber of Secrets (Book 2), #7: The Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
Nostalgia value: 9/10
“The Enchanted Forest Chronicles” by Patricia C. Wrede
I’m almost certain that this is the most obscure series on this list. It’s also the only one of the four set entirely in a fantasy universe, rather than exploring a secret magical world within our own. “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles” draws heavily from classic fairy tales, then satirizes and adapts them to great effect. It’s by far the shortest of these series, with just four books, and it probably has the lowest stakes as well (at no point is the end of the world imminent). But it’s just as charming, diverting, and well-written.
The initial heroine of “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles,” is Cimorene, the main protagonist and perspective character of the first book. She is a princess who refuses to be proper (preferring fencing and cooking to embroidery and etiquette) and when faced with an arranged marriage to the deeply boring Prince Therandil, she promptly runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon. She quickly strikes up a friendship with this dragon, Kazul, and immerses herself in the world of dragons. Cimorene then uncovers a conspiracy led by the villainous Society of Wizards to assassinate the King of the Dragons and rig the selection of his successor, and of course she must stop them.
While the first book is mostly confined to the dragon society of the Mountains of Morning, books two through four focus more on the world of the Enchanted Forest. We get to know Mendanbar, the rather put upon King of the Enchanted Forest, who ends up going on a quest with Cimorene and later marrying her. We spend more time with the no-nonsense witch Morwen (quite possibly my favorite character of the series), the nerdy magician Telemain and finally Cimorene and Mendanbar’s son, Daystar. There’s also a colorful cast of side characters, from Ballimore the friendly giantess to the allergy-ridden and grandfatherly dragon Roxim to a rabbit/part-time giant flying blue donkey named Killer. Each book involves the wizards trying to make trouble, and our heroes stopping them (and often melting the aforementioned wizards with a mix of soapy water and lemon juice).
The writing of this series is phenomenal. It’s easy to read and has a light, humorous approach that I loved as a kid, but just enough sophistication to hold my attention while revisiting the series. Every character has a distinct presence and voice, and the narrative tone is a wonderful riff on the classic fairytale. The magic systems throughout the book are complex but not overwrought, and the fact that Wrede typically goes for a satirical approach means that she can get away with plot contrivances that a more serious series wouldn’t be able to.
What I love the most about “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles” is its cast of characters. Every perspective character is a ton of fun. Cimorene and Morwen are my favorites, but I still have a lot of affection for Mendanbar and Daystar. Kazul is one of my all-time favorite literary dragons. And the one-book side characters, particularly Princess Alianora (who does a great job offsetting the potential not-like-other-girls problem posed by Cimorene) and the Stone Prince in book one, are extremely loveable. The wizards might be the least intimidating villains out of the four series in this article, but they’re still fun to hate and easy to root against.
If I had a criticism of this series, it would be pacing. Every book has a tendency to start slow and end up rushing near the end. This is particularly true of book four, which also had a sixteen-year time jump to contend with. Like “Harry Potter,” the strength of the character writing helps paper over some plot construction problems, but the pacing sometimes made the first couple chapters of each book a bit of a chore to get through.
Overall though, “The Enchanted Forest Chronicles” is a fantastic series. I expected it to hold up the least well on reread, since it’s aimed at a slightly younger audience than the other three series. But the writing is good, the characters have a near-universal appeal, and riffs on classic fairy tales stay funny no matter how old you are. I also have a huge amount of nostalgia for this series, and reading it made my inner child very happy.
Book ranking: #1: Dealing with Dragons (Book One), #2: Calling on Dragons (Book Three), #3: Searching for Dragons (Book Two), #4: Talking to Dragons (Book Four)
Nostalgia value: 9/10
I thought I’d conclude this article by ranking these four series, but I’ve decided that would be too hard. Instead, I’ll just leave the article with this note: It is absolutely worth revisiting your childhood favorite books. Whether it’s for nostalgia, in the name of reevaluating something, or just for fun, there’s something so comforting and healing about revisiting those stories you loved as a kid. It definitely helped my stress levels, and I’m glad I did this “research.”
