By Lloyd Alexander
An Assistant Pig-Keeper who's desperate to be a hero chases a runaway pig into a war, and learns what being a hero really costs.
Taran's job is to look after a pig. Not a heroic pig, though Hen Wen can see the future, which is why everyone wants her. Taran wants a sword and a war and a name people say out loud, and instead he's stuck mucking out a sty in a quiet corner of Prydain. Then Hen Wen bolts in terror, because the Horned King is riding, and Taran goes after her straight into the middle of everything he asked for. He picks up an unlikely company along the way: Prince Gwydion, who is nothing like the hero in Taran's head; Eilonwy, a girl with a glowing bauble who talks without stopping and rescues him more often than he rescues her; Fflewddur Fflam, a wandering bard whose harp snaps a string every time he stretches the truth; and Gurgi, a miserable, hairy creature who mostly wants crunchings and munchings. Standing between them and home is Arawn, the Death-Lord, and an army of dead men who can't be killed twice.
If your child loved the weight of Narnia — the sense that the war is real and that choosing well actually matters — this is the pick. Alexander built Prydain out of Welsh myth, and the prose has the same formal, slightly old-fashioned cadence as Lewis, so if they liked the sound of Narnia they'll settle into this fast. The difference is Taran. He isn't noble. He's vain and impatient and wrong about nearly everything, and the whole book is him learning that the heroes he dreamed of being are really just tired men doing unglamorous work. For a child who wants glory, that's a lot to take in, and it's often the part that stays with them. There are five books in all, ending in one of the great endings in children's fantasy, so if this one takes, you've got a year of reading ahead.