Welcome back to Book Break! Today we've got a great theme, we are going to tumble down
the rabbit hole into 11 books set in wonderful magical worlds hidden right under our noses. So of
course I had to start with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In this book Alice's
adventures start when she falls down a rabbit hole into a magical world filled with smiling cats,
mad hatters, playing cards that have human heads, and a vengeful queen who wants to chop Alice's
head off. And the rabbit hole isn't the only portal into another world. In the sequel Through
the Looking Glass, Alice steps through a mirror into another fantastical world where everything
is reversed, including logic. The magical world of Narnia can famously be reached by stepping
through the back of a wardrobe in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis,
but actually that's not the only magical world in this series. Actually my favourite book in the
series is The Magician's Nephew. In this one two children Diggory and Polly find themselves in this
magical wood between the worlds. I remember always finding this world amazing and enchanting, but
also completely terrifying, because in the woods you have the entrances to an infinite number of
different worlds. And at the end of this book you actually get to find out how the magical wardrobe
came into existence. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, Haroun is the son
of a storyteller who has lost his gift. So Haroun finds his way to the sea of stories where all of
the world's stories start from, to help bring his father back his inspiration. This is a children's
classic, it's another very dreamy story like Alice in Wonderland, where you're left wondering which
bits really happened and which were just another story. And then from a recent book, in The Rookery
by Deborah Hewitt, the Rookery is an alternate London. A city of magic and secrets which is
now facing destruction. This is the sequel to the first book, The Nightjar, which details how Alice,
the main character, first stumbled across the Rookery. And now in this book she realizes the
price she must pay to save it. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is the first in the London Below series
where you find an alternate underground London, a city full of the people who have fallen through
the cracks. And then you'll find yet another alternate London in the book Un Lun Dun by
China Mieville. This is a YA novel which brings its two main characters to the urban wonderland
of unLondon, a city where all the lost and broken things from London end up, and some of the lost
and broken people too. And while I'm recommending China Mieville books, I have to recommend The
City & the City by China Mieville, a very unusual book about two cities that occupy the exact same
space at the same time, but whose residents are taught since childhood how to ignore and unsee any
building, person, or event from the other city. Even if something is inches away from their face,
they know how to unsee it. And seeing something even by accident is described as a breach:
a crime worse than murder. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor is about 12 year old girl called Sunny
who has recently moved from New York back to her ancestral home of Nigeria and feels really lost.
She's an albino Black girl, she's very sensitive to the sun and she gets bullied at school,
but one day she sees through a candle’s flame into another world, or the end of this one. And
from there she slowly starts to uncover the world of magic where her powers are just coming to the
surface. Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones is about Liesl who was raised on childhood fantasies and stories
of the goblin king, but now that she's 18 and settling down to help run the family business, she
feels like her imagination is fading. Until her sister is taken by the goblin king, and Liesl has
to travel underground and discover that all of the stories are true. And something really fun about
this book is it's got a musical angle. So Liesl writes music inspired by the tales that she hears,
so the whole book is really rich with music, magic and mythology. For something a little bit
spooky you could read The Ghost Bride by Yangtze Chu. So this one is set in 1893 Malaya, which we
now know as Malaysia. It's about Li Lan who has just received a very strange proposal, to become
a ghost bride to the late son of the wealthy Lim family who has recently died under very mysterious
circumstances. So while she's making her decision, she starts being haunted by the ghost of her
would-be husband, and starts travelling night after night to the parallel world of the Chinese
afterlife. So it becomes this really gripping mystery. Li Lan has to race to uncover the
secrets of the Lim family and her own before she gets trapped in the ghostly world forever. Then
I'm sure you've heard of Every Heart of Doorway by Seanan Mcguire. We know we love stories about
children who are swept off to fantasy worlds like Alice in Wonderland I mentioned at the beginning,
or Peter Pan and the Darling children off to Neverland, but what happens to those children when
they come back to reality? That's what the book Every Heart a Doorway is exploring. It's set at
a home for wayward children, filled with children who have tumbled back from far-off fantasy worlds,
forever changed with no way back. So it's a dark fairy tale, and this one is very big on BookTube.
And then finally, something a little bit different to finish with. Rabbits by Terry Miles doesn't
take the reader off to a different world, but it introduces them to the virtual reality world
playing out right under our noses. This book is about The Game, a mysterious alternate reality
game played out on a global stage. And if you know where to look and how to find the clues, you can
find your way into the game, but beware: playing the game can be deadly. For more recommendations
I will link here to a playlist of all of our videos recommending fantasy books, but I would
also love any more recommendations you might have on books like these set in hidden worlds,
I think those are my favourite types of fantasy, where it's almost our reality but with a little
doorway into somewhere a bit magical. Do leave your comments below and I'll see you next time!