Episode 707: Kid and YA Fantasy

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Welcome to Reading With Libraries!
Thank you for joining us on the SEVENTH SEASON of our Reader’s Advisory podcast! We have more genres to discuss, new books to recommend, and we’re so glad you’re here to join us. We always enjoy our book group podcast, and we hope you do, too! 

Today we’re leaving our familiar, everyday world and visiting faraway lands filled with adventure and magic. That’s right, we’re chatting about fantasy books, specifically fantasy reads for kids and young adults. 

And we are THRILLED to welcome another new voice to our bookgroup: Cassie Watt! Cassie owns and manages Mud Puddle Toys, where she uses her library degree to provide some great books and other fun things to her community.

Our organization is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange. At CMLE, we work with all types of libraries. We started this podcast to provide information for our library community doing Reader’s Advisory work. It’s hard to be an expert on ALL of the great books out there! So we pick a new genre each week to chat about and hopefully provide you with some insight into what may be an unfamiliar genre!  

Beverages:

Each week we like to connect the theme of our books with our beverages! Since we’re discussing fantasy books, we wanted to drink some kid-friendly beverages with a magical flair. We include links to these recipes on our show notes page, in case you’d like to try them for yourself or any young fantasy readers in your life! 

Magic Potion Rainbow Drink

Unicorn Lemonade 

Unicorn Lemonade Ingredients

  • 3 cups water
  • Pink food coloring
  • Purple food coloring
  • teal food coloring
  • 2 tablespoons corn syrup
  • Unicorn sprinkles or pink, purple and gold sprinkles

Lemonade Recipe Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups granulated white sugar
  • 9 cups of water
  • 1.5 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice 20-24 lemons

Unicorn Lemonade Ice Cubes

  1. Divide the water into three different measuring cups with the spout on them. Color the water so you have one cup full of pink water, one cup purple water, and one cup teal water.
  2. Pour the water into individual ice cube trays. Allow the ice to freeze overnight in your freezer.

Homemade Lemonade

  1. Heat a medium pot on the stove on medium hear and add the sugar and the water.
  2. Bring the sugar and 1.5 cups water to a boil
  3. Set aside and let it cool.
  4. Squeeze your lemons into a bowl.
  5. In a large pitcher combine the rest of the water, the sugar/water mixture and the lemon juice and mix well.
  6. Serve over ice.

Assembling Unicorn Lemonade

  1. Once the ice cubes are made and the fresh lemonade is made it is time to put together your Unicorn lemonade.
  2. Place your corn syrup onto a small plate.
  3. Mix together the pink, purple and gold sprinkles together on a small plate.
  4. Dip the rim of your glass into the corn syrup up so it’s lightly coated around the rim. Dip the glass into the sprinkles and swirl it around until the whole rim so it’s covered in sprinkles.
  5. Layer the ice in your glass so it is alternating pink, teal, and purple ice until the glass is full.
  6. Pour in the lemonade and garnish with lemon and straw.

The Disappearing Mocktail – Magical Cotton Candy Drink 

  • Your favorite Canada Dry Ginger Ale® and 7UP®
  • A handful of Cotton Candy per glass
  • Brightly colored rainbow licorice
  • Color sugar crystals
  • Corn syrup
  • Dip the top cup edge in corn syrup.
  • Then, dip it in sanding sugar or colored sugar crystals.
  • Add a licorice straw.
  • Fill the cup with cotton candy fluff.
  • Then, pour your favorite Canada Dry Ginger Ale® and 7UP® to about 2/3 full.
  • Drink and enjoy!

Genre Discussion:

This article from The Conversation explains why fantasy is appealing and appropriate for kids:

“Fantasy is a genre that has much to offer young readers. One of the most compelling reasons for giving children fantasy is that it comments on social reality through indirections (metaphor, allegory, parable) and can therefore deal with complex moral questions in a more playful and exaggerated manner. Fantasy also prompts young readers to play at seeing the world in different ways and accordingly teaches them to construct meaning by making connections between seemingly unrelated concepts or things.”

And Wikipedia provides us with this more general definition of the fantasy genre: 

“is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. 

Most fantasy uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these worlds.

An identifying trait of fantasy is the author’s use of narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent.[1] This differs from realistic fiction in that realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, where fantasy does not. In writing fantasy the author creates characters, situations, and settings that are not possible in reality.”

Suggested Reading Resources:

Our Book Discussion

We have our beverages, we are familiar with this week’s genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We will give you a list of all the books we share today. You can click on any of these links to go to Amazon.com for more information. If you buy anything while you are there, Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits from your purchase. Thanks in advance for helping to support the mission of CMLE – we appreciate it! 

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for joining us on Reading With Libraries! 

Special thanks to our Guest Host, Cassie! We’re so happy you were able to join our book group today! 

Join us next Thursday with another genre, more guest hosts for our book group, and more books to share and discuss. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss a single episode! And if you want to hear more about the work we do in libraries or expand your library skills, check out our podcast Linking Our Libraries!

Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday!