Diverse Books for a Neighborhood of Readers
butler sower.jpg

Other Worlds

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Afrofurturism, Feminist & Queer World-Building - an invitation to step into other worlds has always been at the center of our brick-and-mortar. Our first scifi/fantasy lists were built by WisCon fans, heavy on Butler and Le Guin and the other founding women of the genre. We’ve maintained our commitment to find, read, shelve, and recommend diverse voices. Browse here and find books for middle-grade and up, as the best speculative fiction crosses ages and genres!

Seanan McGuire, "Wayward Children" series

Seanan McGuire, "Wayward Children" series

from $19.43

Price includes state and local tax. Book can be picked up at the store or delivered to your home in Northwest Philadelphia. We don’t yet mail books - if you live outside of our delivery area, please visit Bookshop.org to have this great book mailed to you.

Title:
Quantity:
Add To Cart

Every Heart a Doorway

Winner: 2017 Hugo Award
Winner: 2017 Alex Award
Winner: 2017 Locus Award
Winner: 2016 Nebula Award
Nominated: 2017 World Fantasy Award
Nominated: 2017 British Fantasy Award
2016 Tiptree Honor List

A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy -- a jewel of a book that deserves to be shelved with Lewis Carroll's and C. S. Lewis' classics --NPR

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

Down Among the Sticks and Stones

Seanan McGuire returns to her popular Wayward Children series with Down Among the Sticks and Bones--a truly standalone story suitable for adult and young adult readers of urban fantasy, and the follow-up to the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List book Every Heart a Doorway

Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.

This is the story of what happened first...

Jacqueline was her mother's perfect daughter--polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it's because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline.

Jillian was her father's perfect daughter--adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got.

#3 Beneath the Sugar Sky (stand alone title)

Beneath the Sugar Sky, the third book in McGuire's Wayward Children series, returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children in a standalone contemporary fantasy for fans of all ages. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the real world.

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can't let Reality get in the way of her quest - not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)

#4 In an Absent Dream (stand alone)

A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire's Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began in the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List Every Heart a Doorway

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn't have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests...

#5 Come Tumbling Down

The fifth installment in New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire's award-winning Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down picks up the threads left dangling by Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones

When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister--whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice--back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West's No Quests rule is about to be broken.

#6 Across the Green Grass Fields (stand alone)

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, a standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series.

"Welcome to the Hooflands. We're happy to have you, even if you being here means something's coming."

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to Be Sure before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines--a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem...

A standalone Wayward Children story containing all-new characters, and a great jumping-on point for new readers.

bintihome.jpg 81IICHFn4LL.jpg

Nnedi Okorafor, " Binti Trilogy"

from $10.79
Charlie Jane Anders, "The City in the Middle of the Night"

Charlie Jane Anders, "The City in the Middle of the Night"

$29.15
P. Djèlí Clark, "The Haunting of Tram Car 015"

P. Djèlí Clark, "The Haunting of Tram Car 015"

$16.19
Catherynne M. Valente, "Space Opera"

Catherynne M. Valente, "Space Opera"

$17.28
memory called empire.jpg Desolation called peace.jpg

Arkady Martine, "Teixcalaan" series

from $20.51