#books of Bayern

[book--brackets]

Summaries under the cut

Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter

Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school—that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but it's really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"—but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

Trespassers will be turned to stone

For centuries, mystical creatures of all description were gathered to a hidden refuge called Fablehaven to prevent their extinction. The sanctuary is one of the last strongholds of true magic. Enchanting? Absolutely. Exciting? You bet. Safe? Well, actually, quite the opposite . . .

Kendra and her brother, Seth, have no idea their grandfather is the current caretaker of Fablehaven. Inside the gated woods, ancient laws keep order among greedy trolls, mischievous satyrs, plotting witches, spiteful imps, and jealous fairies. However, when the rules get broken, powerful forces of evil are unleashed, forcing Kendra and Seth to face the greatest challenge of their lives, to save their family, Fablehaven, and perhaps even the world.

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330. Nearly seven hundred years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty and Nicholas Flamel lives. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects—the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. And that's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it. Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

Out of My Mind by Shannon Draper

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom - the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she's determined to let everyone know it - somehow.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale

She was born with her eyes closed and a word on her tongue, a word she could not taste.

Her name was Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she spent the first years of her life listening to her aunt’s stories and learning the language of the birds, especially the swans. And when she was older, she watched as a colt was born, and she heard the first word on his tongue, his name, Falada.

From the Grimm’s fairy tale of the princess who became a goose girl before she could become queen, Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original, and magical tale of a girl who must find her own unusual talents before she can lead the people she has made her own.

Fudge by Judy Blume

Life with his little brother, Fudge, makes Peter Hatcher feel like a fourth grade nothing. Whether Fudge is throwing a temper tantrum in a shoe store, smearing mashed potatoes on the walls at Hamburger Heaven, or trying to fly, he's never far from trouble. He's an almost three-year-old terror who gets away with everything, and Peter's had it up to here! When Fudge walks off with Dribble, Peter's pet turtle, it's the last straw. Peter has put up with Fudge for too long. Way too long! How can he get his parents to pay attention to him for a change?

Bartimaeus by Jonathan Stroud

Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the "ultimate sacrifice" for a "noble destiny."

If leaving his parents and erasing his past life isn't tough enough, Nathaniel's master, Arthur Underwood, is a cold, condescending, and cruel middle-ranking magician in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The boy's only saving grace is the master's wife, Martha Underwood, who shows him genuine affection that he rewards with fierce devotion. Nathaniel gets along tolerably well over the years in the Underwood household until the summer before his eleventh birthday. Everything changes when he is publicly humiliated by the ruthless magician Simon Lovelace and betrayed by his cowardly master who does not defend him.

Nathaniel vows revenge. In a Faustian fever, he devours magical texts and hones his magic skills, all the while trying to appear subservient to his master. When he musters the strength to summon the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus to avenge Lovelace by stealing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, the boy magician plunges into a situation more dangerous and deadly than anything he could ever imagine.

Shadow Children by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend.

Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside.

Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows - does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess.

Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

[thatonekawaiigirl13]

anyone still active in the books of bayern fandom in 2024?

pls lemme know

[kanerallels]

RIVER SECRETS (re: olives tag) love those books (don't love olives though lol)

YEAH we love Shannon Hale! Those books were my childhood, I adored them. Who were your favorites characters? (Yeah that's valid, they're a stronger taste)

[lothloriencosplay]

My little painting inspired by The Goose Girl 🥰

[its-to-the-death]

Battle of the Gingers Wave 1 Preliminary Round #55

Whoever gets the most votes moves onto the next round

Captain Crandall/Cap (Teamo Supremo)

[eviefrie]

geric: this is my wife, isi, and her girlfriend enna, and enna's boyfriend finn, and enna and finn's boyfriend razo

[mybrainisalibrary]

I forgot how much I love Shannon Hale's writing style and how she makes the first chapter FEEL so much like a fairy tale before getting into the rest of the story

Like Ani's aunt is never named we get little explanation about her but we rarely get that info in fairy tales so it doesn't feel out of place here

[evelhak]

Old art #11: Enna Burning

Shannon Hale and Books of Bayern were some of my favourite reads last decade. Here's some watercolour fan art I did of the fiery Enna.

[ladybizarre13]

hello hi does anyone else here like books of bayern? no? just me?

[theboyatthebustop]

does anyone know that the goose girl by Shannon Hale is being adapted into a musical

[book--brackets]

[hedgiwithapen]

Isi and Garric are going to meet Isi's mother, the people speaking Queen of Kildrenree

Putting a fancy hat on Jok was rapidly becoming a more desirable option. Geric's fingers were ink stained as much as Isi's were, from jotting down notes and then going over them together, often with Talone, Finn, Enna, or old Odaccar to give their thoughts. Then the whole mess had to be copied again. They might have left the work to scribes, but Isi hadn't wanted to let on to palace gossip how nervous the upcoming  Royal visit was making them. 

Her mother would arrive in a day's time, taking the new Forest Road that cut through the mountains, making a many-months long journey into a scant handful of weeks. Messengers had come riding ahead on horses both familiar and foreign to her, bearing letters in her mother's hand.  Of course, with the alliance so recently forged, and with all the drama that had surrounded it, and then the war with Tira, it was necessary for her mother to visit the new King and Queen of Bayern. There was nothing sinister in a mother wishing to see her daughter's home, in a queen wanting to be certain that an alliance so tentative was on solid footing. Most of the Palace, and Geric's council, hadn't batted an eye at  the arrangement of the visit. 

Isi and Geric were still ill at ease. 

"We have the maps," she said, finding her voice in time to stop her husband's pacing. "We can give up a mile or two at the border without displacing anyone, and let her talk us into another five before it'll get hard for the people at Riversfoot." That her mother would use her power to convince them to sacrifice land was a given, Isi remembered how unhappy the Queen had been about the narrow patch of mountain and wood Bayern had left Kildenree.  "As long as we stick to the scripts, we should be alright..."

"It's not the land I'm worried about, Geric said, quietly. 

"Why not? It is your land, after all, and my mother should have no claim on it, after--"

"I know," he said, sinking onto the edge of their bed. "I know I should be worried about that, but--"

"Then what?" Isi asked, putting her hand on his knee. 

"You so rarely speak of your childhood. You know a double dozen of my stories, but everything I know of your mother...I don't want her putting... putting poison in my ear about you." His dark eyes, bright as a bird's, held on her face. "I don't want her to speak badly of you. I don't want to believe it even for a moment. But I don't know if I can keep my mind."

"You can," Isi said, quiet. "I know you, Geric."

"You knew me as a fool who believed ..." he stopped. Neither of them ever spoke the traitor's name.

"You didn't know not to," Isi insisted. "My mother has practice, true, but she won't have malice, either. We'll be fine."

"And we're sure it's not too late to run away to the Forest?" 

"Unfortunately. Now, we need to finish this, in case she starts talking about succession crises." Isi hefted another sheet of parchment with talking points written on it.

Geric heaved to his feet with a dramatic groan. "Your mother is the fool, and I am the luckier for it," he said, bending so his chin rested on her shoulder. "You make the finest queen anywhere on the continent has ever had."

Isi laughed.

[official-kenralie-fanbase]

🥺 what's a truly underrated book/series you recommend and wish the whole world would read?

Something that's not KOTLC or TLC or any of your listed fandoms pls (something I don't already know)

Yay I was hoping someone would ask me this!

I’d have to answer the Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale. There is not really a fandom that I know of, and I honestly can’t see why. These books are SO good- really wholesome Upper MG fantasy with excellent worldbuilding and lovable characters. They’d honestly probably be fun for KOTLC fans to read, since there are characters with elemental abilities that really explore the consequences of having a connection with fire, water, etc. I rated all four books either four or five stars! They are, in order, The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets and Forest Born. I’d encourage KOTLC fans (or anyone really but that’s mostly who follows me lol) to check out this series!

[mariedemedicis]

doing my re-read of the books of bayern (i'm on river secrets currently) and gah i'm so sad that there won't be any more

like the talone/megina romance is set up here

i would kill to see the other side of things - how lord kilcad is getting by back in bayern with isi and geric

conrad is way more present here suddenly after not being in enna burning at all and it felt like he was going to have a bigger role sometime later but to my recollection he's back to being a bit player again in forest born

oh and i had utterly forgotten that geric and isi were going to call the baby after enna if tusken had been a girl!

also with both megina and conrad in this one, i was looking forward to learning more about geric's family

haven't gotten there yet in the read but i love that we get to see one of isi's siblings again

what do you wish we could have seen from more books of bayern?

[kpopandbookschild]

Book poll round 2 #4

where it says 4 books its supposed to say 12 -_-

[herbirdglitter]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Rin was aroace in Forestborn