The Fantasy book that hooked you in.

[HareBrain]

Are the Moomin troll-books considered fantasy?

That's why I found this question hard to answer: how to distinguish between the genres of fantasy and children's fiction (much of which includes fantastic elements).

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Magician by Raymond E Feist.

I have next to no desire to read his latest books, but I will always be grateful to him for hooking me in to the genre.

 

[SeverianRandom]

Mr first was more historic, but at the time for me it was fantastical:
Treasure Island! Mum used to read it to me when I was a little kid.
Then I remember stealing Lord of the Rings from her and couldn't read it, so she started reading the Hobbit. It wasn't till I was about 16 that I actually read LOTR

 

[Shadow Trooper]

The Magician's Nephew (Narnia) was a book I read at school; the concept of these rings that take you to a forest with pools of water leading to other worlds fascinated me.

As a child, I think it was my first 'you know, there are some things that you just can't explain' moment.

It was a while before I returned to books (blame Knight Rider, Street Hawk, A-Team and a host of other 80's TV), but the Dragonlance Series was one I enjoyed.

 

[Delvor]

As a kid I didn't read much fantasy but when I got into Brian Jaques Redwall books I read them a lot.
When I got older, I think the book that hooked me in was - The Redemptions of Althalus by Eddings.

 

[JB_Dresden]

As my handle might indicate, the Dresden Files really sucked me in, being from Chicago and all, but I also read around the same time the first book of the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, which is still ongoing.

 

[digs]

I was going to say Narnia (followed closely by David Eddings and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising), but then I realised my first intro to fantasy was probably through mythology. I used to read Greek, Egyptian, Norse and Celtic mythology books like novels when I was a kid, and I'm still a massive mythology nerd...although I sadly don't have the attention span or dedication of my 8 year-old self.

 

[Shadow Trooper]

Good point digs!

The Greek mythology stories, I think, were told to me in Junior School. So they would have been my first introduction to what may be considered fantasy!

In fact I am sure my son now has/reads my Ladybird Greek Myths Part1 & Part 2 books