Kimber: There’s no place like Outback. There’s no place like Outback…

Mom: Kimmi, girl. Today’s post is about best fictional worlds to get lost in. Hate to break it to ya. But Outback Steakhouse is real.

Kimber: A canine can dream, right? Okay, okay. I’ll try to bring it in and focus on beautiful, interesting and well-built fictional worlds to get lost in. Or maybe sit down with a nice, thick juicy steak…

While Kimmi’s doing her thinking (or chewing), what about Best Fictional Worlds to Get Lost In via the pages of a really good book? Here’s our collection. From books we’ve actually read.

These books brim with adventure and intrigue. Enchantment. Secret rooms or fantastical forests. Talking beasts. Magic. Lots more. They’re a chance to spread your mental wings. Fire your imagination. And escape into fictional worlds of fantastic heroes and heroines. Dastardly villains. Narrow escapes. Harrowing close calls. Uncommon courage and steadfast valor. And lots of other good stuff.

5 Elements of Captivating Fictional Worlds

1.  A magic system. This is the element that sets fantasy fiction apart from other genres.
2. A well-developed setting. This is another absolutely vital element within fantasy fiction.
3.  A cast of complex characters. As with any novel, it’s often the characters in fantasy fiction that truly get readers invested in the story.
4. A central conflict.
5. A power structure/system of government.

They’re the kind of books that make you want to pack your bags and board the next Hogwart’s Express. Here are some of our favorites (in no particular order):

15 Best Fictional Worlds to Get Lost In

1.The Once and Future King – T.H. White

A quartet of novels by T.H. White, published in a single volume in 1958. Includes The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Queen of Air and Darkness—first published as The Witch in the Wood (1939)—The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and The Candle in the Wind (1958). The series is a retelling of Arthurian legend, from Arthur’s birth to the end of his reign, and is based largely on Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. 

2. Inkheart – Cornelia Funke

Meggie loves stories, but her book-binding father, Mo, hasn’t read aloud to her since her mother mysteriously disappeared some years ago.

When a stranger who knows her father knocks at their door, Mo is forced to reveal an extraordinary secret – when he reads aloud, words come alive, and dangerous characters step out of the pages.

Suddenly, Meggie is living the kind of adventure she has only read about in books, but this one will change her life for ever.

3. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum

Dorothy Gale and the Star of the Show, Toto!

A modern fairy tale with a distinctly American setting, a delightfully levelheaded and assertive heroine, and engaging fantasy characters, the story was enormously popular and became a classic of children’s literature.

4. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit and Middle Earth and the Shire- J.R.R. Tolkien

Who wouldn’t love to roam The Shire with Frodo, Bilbo and Sam? Explore Rivendell, Mirkwood, Gondor, Lothlórien, Helm’s Deep? Or ride with the Rohirim? Much more!

5. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A pilot crashes in the Sahara Desert and encounters a strange young boy who calls himself the Little Prince. The Little Prince has traveled there from his home on a lonely, distant asteroid with a single rose. The story that follows is a beautiful and at times heartbreaking meditation on human nature.

6. Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak

This Caldecott Medal winner focuses on Max who, after dressing in his wolf suit, wreaks  havoc through his household and sent to bed without his supper. And then…

7. The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan

12-year-old Percy Jackson discovers he is the son of Poseidon in the opener to the hilarious, fast-paced adventure fantasy series for young readers ages 10 and up

The first book in Rick Riordan’s thrilling series is filled with magic, mythology, and plenty of monsters.

8. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a “tesseract.” Aka: a wrinkle in time. Meg’s father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?

Lots of action and intrigue in fantastical worlds awaits…

9. Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war…

10. Peter Pan  – J.M. Barrie

Don’t make explain this.

11. Jumanji – Chris Van Allsburg