Many writers throughout times have written about fictional places. Today I want to talk about some of my favorite fantasy places from literature! I will focus on children’s or young adult literary places, in order to keep this post from getting ridiculously long!
I have always adored Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Dodgson) created brilliant worlds for Alice to visit. These worlds, sometimes both seen as Wonderland, were filled with amazing creatures and rules that are whimsically non-sensical! The Cheshire Cat, The Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are all favorite characters to watch in screen adaptations. There are actually two queens in the books, the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen. The famous poem The Jabberwocky is also featured in these books! This world, or worlds if you see Wonderland and the Looking Glass as separate, are incredible places I wished I could visit as a child. The books would go on to inspire my favorite Jefferson Airplane song, White Rabbit, making them even more special!
A second great children’s literary place is from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There are many Oz books that show us how truly amazing the world is. This is a world full of witches, both good and evil. There are also magical and talking animals, and sentient scarecrows! From the yellow brick road to the emerald city, this is an enchanted place to visit, whether you visit in the books or the 1939 masterpiece film!
Another great children’s book series is C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. I first read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was about six years old. In the book Lucy Pevensie finds the magical land of Narnia by going into a wardrobe (or closet) and finding Narnia hidden in the back. Narnia is a place of magical beings, talking animals, and a faery land where time runs differently. In the first book the Pevensie children grow up there, and become kings and queens! As a young child I wanted to visit Narnia, and become a queen there, so badly that I tried desperately to find it by climbing into every closet I saw. Needless to say as a six year old I never fell through the back of a closet into a magical land, but how cool would that have been!
Finally, I have to talk about the Wizarding World of the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling. I grew up with the books, and was lucky enough to be a child who was growing up as they were written. I am one of the people who got to grow up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione! I was fifteen going on sixteen when the final book was published. Of course, when I was eleven I kept waiting for my acceptance letter to Hogwarts, as did many of the children my age who grew up on Harry Potter. Unfortunately, the letter never arrived, but my love for the fictional world did not diminish. This world is filled with magical creatures, spells gone amok, and a classic battle of good verses evil! This universe is so beloved that Universal Studios amusement park even has a Wizarding World theme park attraction!
I hope you have enjoyed my discussion about my favorite fantasy places! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the page is a Thomas Kinkade Studios painting of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. I found the image on thomaskinkade.com.
Further Reading
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
- Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
White Rose of Avalon 