News: Charlie Higson writes in The Guardian about his Top Ten Fantasy Book For Children

Thanks to the wonders of Twitter I spotted this article on The Guardian website the other day. Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond series, wrote about his Top Ten Fantasy Books for Children on the day that The Fear, the third book in his brilliant zombie series, was published by Puffin. Quite often I read these lists and feel guilty that I haven't read many of the books on them, but this time I was relieved to see that not only had I read a number of them, but they were also some of my favourites. The list is as follows:


1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
2. Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancellyn Green
3. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peak
4. The Knight of the Swords by Michael Moorcock
5. The Earthsea Quartet by Ursual le Guin
6. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
7. The Vampire's Assistant by Darren Shan
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
9. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
10. Neuromancer by William Gibson


I have put in bold the ones I have read, and yes, I know I really should have read The Earthsea Quartet but the books were never introduced to me as a child and these days there just isn't time in the day although I have pledged to read them one day. One or two of the books on this are certainly more for teens than children (Titus Groan and Neuromancer) but otherwise this looks like a well-balanced list between old and modern fantasy stories. And if you can't be bothered to click the link to The Guardian article and you are wondering where the likes of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are then Charlie Higson says: "Inevitably I got around to Tolkien. He's missing from the list, as are the Narnia books, because I suppose they're taken as read." My favourite part of the whole article though goes to his heartfelt comments about JK Rowling, sentiments that I agree with 100%. Great list Mr Higson!


Finding this link also led to me stumbling across this brilliant promotional video for the book. The Fast Show didn't do book promos but if they did I imagine it would have looked something like this. It certainly had me racing over to Amazon to order a copy of The Fear: