The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Sophie is turned into an old woman by a witch, shrugs, and goes to keep house for a vain, slippery wizard whose castle clanks across the moors on chicken legs. It's all bickering, doors that open onto four different places, and a fire demon who does the cooking. Read it when you want to be looked after and gently teased.

A boy crosses the wall at the edge of his sleepy English village to fetch a fallen star for a girl, and finds the star is a furious woman with a broken leg. What follows is a proper fairy tale — witches, ghostly princes, a market that appears once every nine years. Read it on a night when you want enchantment with a sharp, knowing wink.

Every ten years the wizard takes a girl from the valley, and this time, to everyone's surprise, he takes Agnieszka — clumsy, perpetually grubby, and quietly furious about it. The magic here smells of woodsmoke and turned earth, and the corrupted Wood at the valley's edge is genuinely creeping. Read it when you want a fairy tale with mud under its nails.