In my Magna Cartas post I got pretty specific about what I like and don’t like in my entertainment.

I decided it would be most accurate to say entertainment, as I feel the same about these theses whether I’m reading, writing or watching it on-screen.

Some of my favorite examples.  It’s easy to see why my favorites rate that way, as they fit so many of my criteria.

1. Physical (especially trans-species) transformation
   1. Any number of folktales.  Also,
   2. East and
   3. The Hound and the Princess
   4. A Well-Timed Enchantment
   5. The Silver Chair (C.S. Lewis)
   6. The Cat who Wished to be a Man (Lloyd)
2. Music as part of story
   1. East
   2. Dragonsong and Dragonsinger (McCaffery)– These are her only books that ended up on this side of the chart.
3. Well behaved animals (impeccably trained or sentient)
   1. The Hound and the Princess
   2. Fire Arrow
4. Mysteries that go deep into folklore
   1. The Perilous Gard
   2. Moorchild
5. Making necessary elements of folk/fairy tales natural
   1. Ella Enchanted (Levine)
   2. Fairest (Levine)
   3. The Perilous Gard
   4. Shadow Spinner
6. Genuine peril
   1. Enchantment
   2. The Sea Wolf (London)
   3. Inkheart           
7. Threatening villain
   1. Coraline (Gaiman)
   2. The Sea Wolf
   3. Enchantment
   4. Redwall
   5. Fire Arrow
8. Uncertainty of friends (sometimes)
   1. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
   2. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken)
9. Genuine friends (other times)
   1. Goose Girl (Hale)
   2. Beauty (McKinnley)
10. A thinking character watching the process of his or her thought.
    1. The Perilous Gard
    2. The Sea Wolf
    3. Jane Eyre (Bronte)
11. Complexity (lack of obvious predictability)
    1. Enchantment
    2. Dealing with Dragons (Wrede)
    3. Bean Trees (Kingsolver)
    4. Running Out of Time
    5. The Cat who Wished to be a Man (someone else might argue it was predictable)
12. Surprising twists and secrets that the reader discovers with the protagonist
    1. The Perilous Gard
    2. The Sea Wolf
    3. Jane Eyre
    4. Enchantment
    5. The Hound and the Princess
    6. Bean Trees
    7. Fire Arrow
    8. East
    9. Inkheart
13. Cleverness
    1. Dealing with Dragons
    2. Searching for Dragons
14. Characters out-thinking one another
    1. The Sherwood Ring
    2. Shadow Spinner (Fletcher)
15. Courtesy among enemies
    1. The Sherwood Ring
    2. Fire Arrow
16. Truth-telling as a form of riddling and testing
    1. Enchantment
    2. The Perilous Gard
    3. The Hobbit
17. The protective defender
    1. A Voice in the Wind (Rivers)
    2. Princess Academy
18. Dramatic rescues
    1. Enchantment
    2. Inkheart
19. Endurance through fear
    1. Running out of Time (Haddix)
20. “Acts of evil are shocking offenses to the way things should be.”
    1. Silverlock (Myers) the scene of cannibalism early in the book
21. Misunderstood identity/”fish out of water”
    1. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
    2. Enchantment
    3. As Sure as the Dawn
    4. The Moorchild
22. Acknowledge (and explore to some extent) the power of relationship
    1. Enchantment
    2. The Sea Wolf
    3. The Perilous Gard
    4. Jane Eyre
    5. Sure as the Dawn
    6. A Voice in the Wind