Favorite animal fantasy and fiction
Explore a magical list of favorite animal fantasy and fiction books. Discover enchanting tales of mythical creatures, talking animals, and epic adventures in these top-rated reads.
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Watership Down
by Richard Adams
WINNER of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program Now a Netflix animated miniseries starring James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, and Oscar and Grammy award-winner Sir Ben Kingsley. A worldwide bestseller for more than forty years, Watership Down is the compelling tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place in the world—“a classic yarn of discovery and struggle” (The New York Times). Richard Adams’s Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in the Hampshire Downs in Southern England, an idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of “suspense, hot pursuit, and derring-do” (Chicago Tribune) follows a band of rabbits in flight from the incursion of man and the destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they travel forth from their native Sandleford warren through harrowing trials to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. “A marvelous story of rebellion, exile, and survival” (Sunday Telegraph) this is an unforgettable literary classic for all ages.
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Redwall
by Brian Jacques
The book that inspired a legend—the first novel in the bestselling saga of Redwall. Welcome to Mossflower Wood, where the gentle mice have gathered to celebrate a year of peace and abundance. All is well…until a sinister shadow falls across the ancient stone abbey of Redwall. It is rumored that Cluny is coming—Cluny, the terrible one-eyed rat and his savage horde—Cluny, who has vowed to conquer Redwall Abbey! The only hope for the besieged mice lies in the lost sword of the legendary Martin the Warrior. And so begins the epic quest of a bumbling young apprentice—a courageous mouse who would rise up, fight back…and become a legend himself. “The medieval world of Redwall Abbey—where gallant mouse warriors triumph over evil invaders—has truly become the stuff of legend.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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The White Bone
by Barbara Gowdy
The White Bone is a magnificant feat of imagination. Told from the perspective of a young elephant named Mud, it tracks the elephant herd's quest across the dry African plains in search of the White Bone, an object of mythic power that may lead them to safety and survival. The novel solidified Barbara Gowdy's reputation as a daring, virtuoso novelist, and earned awestruck praise from critics around the world.
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Angus
by Charles Siebert
The rollicking (and at times heart wrenching) autobiography of Angus offers a wry, poignant, and ultimately redemptive view of life and death as perceived by one irrepressible Jack Russell terrier.
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Skywater
by Melinda Worth Popham
“This spare and affecting novel has the precision and the stinging sweetness of a fable... a wonderful book.” —Thomas McGuane “Evoking a rich sense of place and animal behavior, (Popham) lets us see through very different eyes.” —The Seattle Times “A parable of making the best of a world short of everything. The people and the creatures of Popham’s fable are right, they belong, and they mean.” —Wallace Stegner “Refreshing... life-affirming... the first book I’ve read in a long time that left me with teary eyes at the end.” —The San Diego Tribune
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The Foxes of First Dark
by Garry Kilworth
A beautiful new novel in the tradition of Watership Down that illuminates the world of humans as deftly as it does the animal kingdom. The brilliant mythology Garry Kilworth weaves through The Foxes of Firstdark will live on in readers' memories.
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The Wild Road
by Gabriel King
In the grand storytelling style of Watership Down and Tailchaser’s Song comes an epic tale of adventure and danger, of heroism against insurmountable odds, and of love and comradeship among extraordinary animals who must brave The Wild Road . . . Secure in a world of privilege and comfort, the kitten Tag is happy as a pampered house pet—until the dreams come. Dreams that pour into his safe, snug world from the wise old cat Majicou: hazy images of travel along the magical highways of the animals, of a mission, and of a terrible responsibility that will fall on young Tag. Armed with the cryptic message that he must bring the King and Queen of cats to Tintagel before the spring equinox, Tag ventures outside. Meanwhile, an evil human known only as the Alchemist doggedly hunts the Queen for his own ghastly ends. And if the Alchemist captures her, the world will never be safe again . . .
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The Golden Cat
by Gabriel King
In The Golden Cat, Gabriel King continues the enchanting quest that began with The Wild Road—the novel the San Francisco Chronicle crowned “mythical,” and Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, deemed “absolutely magical. . .” The ancient prophecy speaks of a golden cat whose coming will heal the troubled world. But the Queen of Cats has three golden kittens—and when two are stolen away, the distraught parents turn to Tag, the brave young cat who is the protector of the magical Wild Road. The desperate search moves from the water-lit Oceanarium and sun-dappled Tintagel to the distant Louisiana bayous and the pyramids of Egypt. As Tag and his friends struggle on, so does a terrifying, unearthly force—a preternatural vortex threatening the Wild Road, tearing at the very fabric of existence. But Tag is disastrously unprepared for the powerful darkness that threatens to consume everything in its wake . . .
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The Plague Dogs
by Richard Adams
A journey into the hearts and minds of two canine heroes, Snitter and Rowf, fugitives from the horrors of an animal research center who escape into the isolation--and terror--of the wilderness.
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Fire Bringer
by David Clement-Davies
Ancient prophecies are fulfilled in these two favorite epic fantasies by David Clement-Davies, now available in oversize trade paperback editions.