Thanks to YA author Sally Apokedak, I found a post highlighting two resources for those interested in YA speculative literature. Reviewer Becky (not me) of Becky’s Book Reviews gives an overview of Encountering Enchantment: A Guide to Speculative Fiction for Teens and Fluent in Fantasy.

I don’t have either book, so have no way of knowing if Christian speculative fiction is included. The author of the first title, Susan Fichtelberg, has a Web site, and on one page she lists her favorite books in fantasy and science fiction:

Top Fifteen Fantasies
In Alphabetical Order by Author
(because there are too many to limit it to ten)

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley
The Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Dreamhunter Duology by Elizabeth Knox
The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin
The Riddle-Master of Hed Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Beast by Donna Jo Napoli
The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
East by Edith Pattou
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Top Fifteen Science Fiction Titles
In Alphabetical Order by Author

The Company series by Kage Baker
Spacer and Rat by Margaret Bechard
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The Mount by Carol Emshwiller
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Pretty good list, I think, though I’m not so excited about Philip Pullman making her cut while C. S. Lewis did not.

Still, this might be a good resource for those working with kids, either as a librarian, teacher, homeschooling parent, or regular old parent.

On thing that caught my eye was the number of titles in the fantasy genre in just the last ten years. It shows how the general market, at least, has gravitated to speculative fiction. Another thing I noticed was in the description of the second book where fantasy is named as “one of the hottest genres going today.” With books like Encountering Enchantment and Fluent in Fantasy, put together with the purpose to catalog the most recent fantasy titles, I think “hot genre” is an apt description.