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Magical Schools: Overdone or A Fantasy Classic?

Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

10 comments on Magical Schools: Overdone or A Fantasy Classic?

Fantasy with Friends is a new weekly meme hosted by Briana @Pages Unbound to discuss all things fantasy. I keep meaning to join in and then running out of time to post, but I’m slipping this one in just before bed time tonight. The topic for this week is magical schools and books about them!

Do you enjoy books about schools of magic, or do you think they are overdone?

I think we need to be clear that there are (broadly) three types of books about schools of magic:

  1. Books about students at a magical school aimed at children and teenagers
  2. Books about students at a magical school aimed at adults
  3. Books about teachers/parents etc. at a magical school, also aimed at adults

My feelings about each one are slightly different.

Magical schools in children’s books

I think magical books are an essential part of fantasy fiction aimed at children – after all, the world that children know and can best relate to is that of school, and books set in magical schools offer a perfect setting to explore some of the issues and challenges that children face in a fantastical setting.

Especially now that Harry Potter is not something we should be encouraging our children to read, we definitely need some good quality magical school fiction to feed young minds. If it features some examples of functioning parents and maybe a non-boarding school environment, even better!

Magical schools for adults: Student edition

This is the type of magical school book that I seem to struggle the most with. A lot of these will be university-based (or a magical equivalent), so the characters are adults but they’re also students.

Theoretically, I should enjoy these stories (especially since I’m a bit of a perpetual academic myself), but they always seem to be written in ways I don’t enjoy! I often find myself thinking they would work better written as a YA book… I also think they can easily fall into the chosen one who is good at everything without trying trope, which I also find annoying. A recent example of this type of book that didn’t work for me would be Arcana Academy by Elise Kova (see my review here).

That’s not to say this type of book can’t be good or that some people don’t enjoy it – that person just isn’t me. I do think there’s some good YA/Adult crossover material here for people that enjoy that sort of thing. I am still waiting to find a really good magic school for adults that doesn’t frustrate me, though.

Magical schools for adults: Teacher edition

Finally, we come to the books that follow the teachers (or professors, researchers, or even parents etc.). I haven’t seen a lot of these, but I find myself enjoying them significantly more. It could be because it feels like a fresher take on the trope, but I also enjoy the greater maturity of the characters and the creativity of the plot lines. I don’t think this is necessarily any better than any other setting for a story, but I have enjoyed what I’ve read so far.

Do you have any favourite magical schools or magical school books?

Speaking of books that I have enjoyed in this subgenre – I think my most recent favourite of this type falls into the “magical schools for adults” category: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. It was a great book with excellent, complex characters, a unique plot, and a fairly accurate insight into British education and teacher life, if my mum’s stories are anything to go by (she’s a secondary school languages teacher – unfortunately, her school doesn’t offer any magic classes). You can check out my full review here.

And in terms of magical school books for children – as a child, I really liked the Children of the Red King series by Jenny Nimmo! The main character, Charlie, goes to a magical school in his city after finding out his powers and goes home at the weekends. Some of the adults in his life are nice, some less so, and he finds a magical family in his friends at school. There are eight books total with nice new editions (I may need to buy these myself as I’m not sure my childhood editions have survived my little sister…).

And that’s it! Please recommend some of your favourite magical school books in the comments below and let me know what you think about magical school books in general!

Keira x

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Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

Hello! My name is Keira and I’m a Korean-English translator and master’s student from the U.K. I have a passion for reading and language learning!

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10 responses to “Magical Schools: Overdone or A Fantasy Classic?”

  1. Gem's Book Talk avatar
    Gem’s Book Talk

    There’s rather a fine line when it comes to magic school books for adults, but which still feature students of a more typical age (even if we’re talking university age rather than younger), because there’s the danger they end up veering a bit too much towards a YA vibe due to the age of the characters – and while there’s nothing wrong with a YA magic school book about YA characters, don’t market that book as adult! The Will of the Many was a recent example that worked well for me, and I will admit to enjoying Fourth Wing, which also falls into this category!

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      That issue of the book ending up reading YA was exactly my issue with Arcana Academy so I think you’re bang on there. The Will on the Many is my TBR and I am looking forward to it!

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  2. Briana | Pages Unbound avatar
    Briana | Pages Unbound

    Several people mentioned The Incandesent. I am definitely going to have to read that sometime!

    I do think schools in adult books can come across as YA. I’d love to see it done well and without necessarily resorting to making it dark academia in an apparent attempt the dark part is supposed to do the heavy lifting of signalling it’s “for grown ups.”

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      I hope you enjoy it!

      Absolutely! Things can be dark and still hit as immature so please put some effort into making your characters read like adults xD (not that all adults are mature of course, but… I’d prefer it if my main character had a little bit more character development before page 1). Just enough to not be entirely infuriating.

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  3. shanaqui avatar
    shanaqui

    I liked The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association quite a bit too — it’s about a magical school, but (as per the title) it’s much more about the parent point of view. I’m not a parent, but still, the level of responsibility the main character has and should have rings true. It’s harder to enjoy magical school stories where the kids end up responsible for saving the world, by this point, it just seems like a total failing of the adults…

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      Exactly! I get it in middle grade and YA stories to some extent because everyone wants to see themselves in the people doing the saving of the world (although I do think we need to stop making everyone an orphan) but when it’s an adult book then like… what was the whole point of the teachers if you’re leaving everything to your students? I’ll have to look into the book you mentioned!

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  4. lindseyreads avatar
    lindseyreads

    I’ve heard so many good things about The Incandescent, it sounds amazing!

    I love that you split this up into 3 types. I don’t think I’ve read any of the third type yet, but the other two I do both love. Though I agree that books about magical schools aimed for adults are trickier as they fall a bit on the YA/adult line…

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      I really enjoyed it – if you like stories based in schools, I would definitely give it a go!

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  5. aquavenatus avatar
    aquavenatus

    For children, I believe more children, teens and adults should read A Wizard of Earthsea and The Nsibidi Scripts.

    For adults, both student and teacher edition, I’m going to recommend Vita Nostra. The trilogy is now complete and it follows students from college to grad school to professorship. It’s an intriguing journey, and that’s after you learn about the “curriculum.”

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      That’s a really interesting concept for a series – kind of like an adult version of the children’s books where you get to grow up with the characters!

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