ABSTRACT
Fantasy fiction is an area of Young Adult literature that has shown exponential growth in recent years. Since the publication of fantasy series such as Ursula Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea or Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, both of which began in the 1960s, a raft of new titles have emerged with increasing popularity for the Young Adult market. This chapter explains three books. The Emerald Atlas discussed in this chapter introduces the three central characters Kate, Michael and Emma, each of whom is inextricably linked to a specific book in each text in the series. The second book Spellwright offers a contrasting role for books and language as modes of magic. The final book to be considered is Funke's Inkheart, an example of what Mendlesohn calls 'intrusion fantasy', a fantasy where characters from a book within the book emerge from their own story and interact with those from the primary narrative.
