Highly illuminating for parents, vital for students, teachers and book lovers alike, ''Enchanted Hunters'' transforms our understanding of why children should read. By exploring how beauty and horror operate in children's literature, Maria Tatar explores why little children love listening to stories and why older ones get lost in certain books. Tatar challenges the assumptions we make about childhood reading. Much as we pay lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading. By looking at C.S. Lewis' ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', Philip Pullman's ''His Dark Materials'', J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels and other narratives, Tatar examines how and what children read, showing how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating and occasionally terrifying energy. A journey into the world of childhood, ''Enchanted Hunters'' is also a trip back for adult readers.