For those of you who have kids that would enjoy reading (or being read) something like The Hobbit, I highly recommend The Princess and the Goblin.
I came across it while looking into the early history of the fantasy genre. It’s sometimes said to be the first fantasy book - published in 1872. It’s beautifully written, with a wonderful whimsical quality and a sense of a believable medieval fantasy/fairytale world that’s more considered than in most children’s books. There’s a bit of a Christian subtext but it’s at least as easy to ignore as in the Narnia books - and the book is much better written than those… I’ve tried re-reading them as an adult and found them quite condescending. Whereas this I really enjoyed.
Hard copies can be bought online, dunno about whether bookshops here will have it. It’s out of copyright, so you can also read it online for free via Project Gutenburg.
I’m part-way through the sequal, The Princess and Curdie. It’s not as easy reading, it has rather long meandering descriptive passages with an even stronger Christian subtext early on. Actually, that’s what tipped me off to the subtext, I didn’t notice it while reading the first book. Later it starts turning into quite a decent adventure story. It’s quite weird though, it kinda reminds me of a Hayao Miyazaki anime like Howl’s Moving Castle in style.