There comes a moment—you shall know it when it arrives—when a reader requires something magnificent. Not merely a tale, mind you, but a grand adventure wherein young heroes discover the extraordinary persons they were always meant to become. If such a moment has found you, dear reader, you have arrived at precisely the right place.
What follows is a gathering of the finest coming of age high fantasy novels, each one a doorway into worlds where magic crackles in the air and young souls grow into their destinies. These are stories that understand what it means to be young and uncertain, to stand at the threshold between who you are and who you might become.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
In the scattered islands of Earthsea, there lived a boy called Duny who possessed within him such power that it frightened even the village witch. This is his tale—though he would become known as Ged, the greatest wizard his world had ever seen.
Le Guin’s masterwork gave us the very notion of a wizard’s school before any others thought to imagine one. Young Ged must learn that the greatest enemy one can face is the shadow within oneself, and that true names hold power beyond measure. The prose flows like poetry, and the lessons taught herein about pride, humility, and the proper use of power have lost none of their potency since 1968.
This is the book against which all coming of age fantasies must measure themselves, and few reach its heights.
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
FitzChivalry Farseer—what a name for a royal bastard, abandoned at the gates of Buckkeep Castle! Yet this unwanted child, this embarrassment to a noble house, would grow to become the most dangerous weapon in a kingdom’s arsenal.
Robin Hobb crafts her tale with exquisite patience, allowing us to grow alongside Fitz as he learns the art of assassination, the mystery of the Wit (that forbidden magic of beasts), and the heartbreaking cost of loyalty. George R.R. Martin himself declared this series “fantasy as it ought to be written,” and he was not wrong.
Those who seek explosive action on every page may grow restless. Those who understand that the truest adventures occur within the human heart shall find a treasure.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Have you heard tell of Kvothe the Bloodless? Kvothe the Arcane? The man called Kingkiller? Behind every legend stands a child who once knew nothing at all, and this is his story, told in his own words to a traveling scribe.
Rothfuss weaves a tale within a tale, as the legendary Kvothe recounts his youth among traveling performers, his desperate years as a street urchin, and his unlikely admission to the University where magic is taught as science. The prose glitters like starlight, and young Kvothe’s cleverness and determination make him a protagonist impossible to forget.
Fair warning: the third book remains unfinished. But oh, what wonders await in the first two volumes!
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Lyra Belacqua was a wild thing, racing through the halls of Jordan College with her daemon Pantalaimon at her side, utterly unaware that she would one day hold the fate of worlds in her small, grubby hands.
Pullman’s trilogy follows young Lyra across parallel universes as she transforms from a mischievous child into something altogether more significant. In a world where souls walk beside their humans in animal form, Lyra must navigate adults who cannot be trusted and truths that would shatter everything she believed.
This is high fantasy at its most ambitious—a meditation on growing up, on the loss of childhood’s innocent certainties, rendered with breathtaking imagination.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
In the kingdom of Orïsha, where magic once bloomed like flowers after rain, a brutal king slaughtered all the maji and left their children—the divîners—to live in fear and poverty. Among them is Zélie, who remembers when her mother’s magic could summon the spirits of the dead.
Adeyemi’s debut blazes with fury and hope in equal measure. When a chance encounter with a runaway princess offers Zélie the opportunity to restore magic to her land, she must become something she never imagined—a fighter, a leader, a wielder of powers she barely understands.
Drawing upon West African mythology, this is high fantasy that feels both ancient and urgently new.
Sabriel by Garth Nix
When a father sends his bells and sword to his daughter at boarding school, along with a message that he has become trapped in Death itself, what choice has she but to go after him? Sabriel left the safety of her school in Ancelstierre and crossed the wall into the Old Kingdom, where the dead do not always rest.
Garth Nix created something wholly original: a world where necromancers are the heroes, wielding bells to send the restless dead back where they belong. Young Sabriel must master arts she barely began to learn, accompanied only by a sardonic cat with a terrible secret.
This is coming of age wrapped in Gothic beauty, equal parts adventure and meditation on mortality.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Jude was seven years old when a faerie murdered her parents before her eyes—and then took her to live in the land of Faerie, among the very creatures who despised her humanity.
A decade later, she wants nothing more than to belong in this treacherous realm where the beautiful Folk scheme and deceive and mortals are playthings. Prince Cardan, wickedest of the High King’s sons, delights in tormenting her. But Jude has learned to fight, and she has learned to scheme, and she will have her place—whatever the cost.
Holly Black understands that growing up sometimes means discovering the darkness within yourself and learning to wield it.
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
In a world of ash and mist, where the immortal Lord Ruler has reigned for a thousand years and the downtrodden skaa slaves dare not dream of freedom, a street urchin named Vin discovered she possessed forbidden powers.
Sanderson’s genius lies in his magic system—allomancy, wherein metals are burned to grant extraordinary abilities. But beneath the ingenious worldbuilding beats the heart of a story about a frightened girl learning to trust, to hope, and to believe she might be worth something after all.
The heist to end all heists. The rebellion that could topple a god. And one young woman discovering she may be the key to everything.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
In an empire built on brutality, where the Scholar people have been conquered and crushed, Laia would do anything to save her brother from the prison mines—even spy upon the most ruthless military academy in the known world.
Elias is the academy’s finest soldier, trained since childhood to enforce the empire’s tyranny. But he dreams only of escape.
Tahir crafted a tale of two souls on opposite sides of an impossible divide, each fighting to discover who they truly are beneath the roles they’ve been forced to play. Inspired by ancient Rome, this is high fantasy with genuine stakes and moral complexity.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
A fifteen-year-old farm boy. A mysterious blue stone that hatches into a dragon. And the beginning of an adventure that would ignite the imaginations of millions.
Paolini wrote Eragon as a teenager himself, and perhaps that is why his tale of young Eragon’s transformation from humble farm boy to legendary Dragon Rider resonates so deeply with young readers. The world of Alagaësia sprawls vast and wondrous, filled with elves and dwarves and magic both ancient and terrible.
This is classical high fantasy in the grand tradition, a testament to what young authors can achieve when they dream boldly enough.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Katsa has been the king’s attack dog since childhood, her Grace—a magical gift that marks her eyes with two different colors—being the terrible ability to kill. But Katsa is not content to be anyone’s weapon.
When she encounters Prince Po, whose Grace for combat matches her own, Katsa begins to question everything she has been told about herself and her powers. Their investigation into a kidnapping reveals a conspiracy that could destroy kingdoms—and a truth about Katsa’s Grace that changes everything.
Cashore wrote a heroine who refuses to be defined by others’ expectations, a fighter who must learn that strength comes in many forms.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Before there were hobbits in your heart, there was a book with a round green door. Behind it lived Bilbo Baggins, a very respectable hobbit who wanted no adventures whatsoever—until a wizard and thirteen dwarves arrived for tea.
Tolkien’s beloved tale remains the gateway through which countless readers first discover high fantasy. Bilbo’s transformation from fussy homebody to barrel-riding, riddle-solving, dragon-confronting hero is the very essence of coming of age, wrapped in the coziness of a fairy tale.
Every young reader deserves to take this unexpected journey at least once.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Lazlo Strange—even his name seems destined for something extraordinary. An orphan raised in a monastery, a dreamer employed in a great library, he has spent his life obsessed with a lost city called Weep, whose very name has been stolen from human memory.
Taylor’s prose is luminous as moonlight, her story a meditation on dreams themselves—what it means to want something impossible, and what happens when the impossible turns out to be real. When a chance comes for Lazlo to journey to the city of his obsession, he discovers that some dreams can save the world, and some can destroy it.
This is high fantasy for those who believe in the transformative power of hope.
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young women are trained to become warriors, assassins, and wielders of ancient powers. Nona Grey arrived there bloodstained and accused of murder—and proved to be the most dangerous novice the convent had ever seen.
Lawrence crafted a coming of age story set against the slow death of a world, where the sun barely warms the land and humanity clings to existence in a narrowing corridor of habitable territory. Nona’s friendships, fierce and loyal, anchor a tale of violence and tenderness in equal measure.
For readers who like their high fantasy with an edge.
Blood Song by Anthony Ryan
Vaelin Al Sorna was given to the Sixth Order as a boy, to be trained in the ways of sword and shadow. He emerged as the most feared warrior of his generation—but at what cost?
Ryan’s tale unfolds through Vaelin’s memories as he awaits execution, recounting the brotherhood he found among his fellow novices and the terrible prices paid for loyalty, love, and faith. The world-building rewards careful attention, and Vaelin’s journey from idealistic youth to legendary fighter rings with hard-won truth.
Epic fantasy that earns its battles through character.
Finding Your Perfect Adventure
Each of these tales understands something essential: that the journey from child to adult is itself a kind of magic, perilous and wonderful in equal measure. Whether you seek wizard schools or dragon riders, dark fairy courts or doomed rebellions, you shall find within these pages young heroes discovering their true selves.
For those who love lyrical prose and philosophical depth, let A Wizard of Earthsea and Strange the Dreamer be your guides. If intricate magic systems and ingenious plots quicken your pulse, look to Mistborn and The Name of the Wind. Should you crave fierce heroines who forge their own destinies, Graceling and The Cruel Prince await.
And for the very young reader, or the young-at-heart seeking pure adventure, The Hobbit and Eragon remain doorways into wonder.
All children grow up, save one. But through stories such as these, we remember what it felt like to stand at that threshold—to discover that within us lay powers we never suspected, destinies we never imagined. And perhaps, dear reader, they still do.
