Firelight review

Firelight
by Sophie Jordan
Harper Teen
September 2010

First  line: "Gazing out at the quiet lake, I know the risk is worth it."

I love shape-changing dragons, and was pleased to find that this book had them in scores. Sixteen year-old Jacinda Jones is all but promised to Cassian, the alpha male heir-apparent to their isolated mountain community of dragonkin. The draki society contains several different subtypes of draki with different powers. They live mostly as humans, only occasionally taking dragon form. Jacinda is a super-rare fire-breather, and the other draki in their village can't wait for her to start having children, hopefully repopulating their kind with fire-breathers again. Jacinda's a bit of a rebel and a risk-taker and the last thing she wants is to pair off with pushy, demanding Cassian. After a forbidden sunrise flight, and a close call with draki hunters, their tribe wants to clip her wings - all but tying her up to force her to breed. Her hard-edged mother decides the only way to save her is to relocate to the desert - hoping the hot dry weather will kill off Jacinda's draki half and shape-changing abilities altogether.

Once they've made their escape from their cool, foggy mountain home, Jacinda's younger twin sister Tamra is delighted to finally not have to play second-fiddle to her superstar older sister. Tamra loves the opportunity to finally be able to go to a normal high school and quickly makes new friends. While Jacinda has never been attracted to Cassian, and is glad to be free of the pressures and politics of the draki society, she loves flying and doesn't want to give up her dragon form. She's desperately holding on, by sneaking out for a few nighttime practice flights, and winds up meeting sensitive, handsome Will, who, it turns out, is the youngest son in a family of murderous draki hunters, providing a forbidden Romeo and Juliet aspect to their romance.

Compare to:
Nightshade - Andrea Cremer
Tempest Rising - Tracy Deebs
Dragonswood - Janet Lee Carey
Seraphina - Rachel Hartman


I borrowed this book from the library.

Dragonswood review

Dragonswood

by Janet Lee Carey

Dial Books

January 2012

First line: "I am seven years old. My father takes me to a witch burning."

This story has a strong sense of the medieval time period... if faeries and dragons co-existed in an uneasy truce with humans. Seventeen year old Tess lives in a small peasant cottage with her mother and abusive stepfather on the edge of a tiny village. She fights her compulsion to explore the nearby cursed Dragonswood on a daily basis, but gives in nearly every night, sneaking out to enjoy nature and spy on dragons. Tess lives in terror of being married off to a gross wealthy old man chosen by her father, or worse of being accused of witchcraft - she didn't ask to be gifted with fire-induced visions.

Following the death of her infant brother, and the arrival of an aggressive witchhunter, Lady Adela, who seems eager to fill a quota, Tess and her two best friends, Meg and Poppy, make a run for it. It takes Tess a long time to warm up to Garth Huntsman, a ranger they encounter in their travels. Of course, he turns out to be the same man from Tess's visions. As various elements from an ancient prophecy begin to come together, Tess finds herself negotiating between Onadon, the former fey king, Lord Kahlil, a very senior dragon and the (mostly) human royal family. A nice treat for fantasy fans, Carey skillfully weaves several mythologies seamlessly together into a rich and complicated world.

Compare to:
Dragon's Keep - Janet Lee Carey
Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
Firelight - Sophie Jordan
Alchemy and Meggy Swann - Karen Cushman

I borrowed this book from the library.

Waiting on Seraphina

Human/dragon war? Say no more! I am completely sold on this one.

Seraphina
by Rachel Hartman
Random House Children's Books

July 2012

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page.

Firelight review

Firelight
by Sophie Jordan
Harper Teen
September 2010

I love shapechanging dragons, and was pleased to find that this book had them in scores. Sixteen year-old Jacinda Jones is all but promised to Cassian, the alpha male heir-apparent to their isolated mountain community of dragonkin. The draki society contains several different subtypes of draki with different powers. They live mostly as humans, only occasionally taking dragon form. Jacinda is a super-rare fire-breather, and the other draki in their village can't wait for her to start having children, hopefully repopulating their kind with fire-breathers again. Jacinda's a bit of a rebel and a risk-taker and the last thing she wants is to mate with pushy, demanding Cassian. After a forbidden sunrise flight, and a close call with draki hunters, their tribe wants to clip her wings - all but tying her up to force her to breed. Her hard-edged mother decides the only way to save her is to relocate to the desert - hoping the hot dry weather will kill off Jacinda's draki half and shapechanging abilities altogether.

Once they've made their escape from the cool, foggy mountain home, Jacinda's younger twin sister Tamra is delighted to finally not have to play second-fiddle to her superstar older sister. Tamra loves the opportunity to finally be able to go to a normal high school and quickly makes new friends. While Jacinda has never been attracted to Cassian, and is glad to be free of the pressures and politics of the draki society, she loves flying and doesn't want to give up her dragon form. She's desperately holding on, by sneaking out for a few nighttime practice flights, and winds up meeting sensitive, handsome Will, who, it turns out, is the youngest son in a family of murderous draki hunters. There's a real forbidden Romeo and Juliet aspect to their romance. I can't wait to dig into the sequel, Vanish.


I borrowed this book from the library.

My Father's Dragon Book Club

Normally, I like to recount my successes here on the blog, but sometimes, honesty is best, too. I've been running a book club for 8-12 year olds at my library and attendance has been low(ish) but not abysmal. It's definitely not an easy sell, not like adding another baby or toddler storytime, which would fill up in no time, that's for sure. I have about a half-dozen kids who've been showing up on a somewhat regular basis. Generally, we read a book, and do a craft while we have a light-hearted, informal, no-quizzes-later, kind of chat about the book. Our Diary of a Wimpy Kid book club meeting last month probably drew the largest crowd yet. I've been hosting them on the first Friday of the month in the late afternoons - mainly because there's been a lot of requests for activities that aren't in the middle of the week. It's the beginning of the weekend, and "First Friday" is alliterative, and relatively easy to remember. A lot of the kids are pretty engaged, but with their busy schedules, they are a bit burnt-out on anything too "schoolish" so I really make an effort to keep things fun and low-pressure.


When I was planning our line-up of book club meetings, like, 6 months ago, I completely forgot that the first Friday in March would be Dr. Seuss's birthday. I planned for us to read My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett and make a dragon paper bag puppet. Voila!

Gorgeous, right? I got the pattern from www.abcteach.com. They have a number of resources for free, or for $39.99 (less with a group membership!) you get access to all of their crafts and activities - well worth it, in my opinion. Their cute craft ideas are such a timesaver.


The original pattern has a strange-looking belly for the dragon, but I nixed that in favor of the striped construction-paper belly I gave him.


Sadly, my book club were no-shows! Why? Well, I think they simply had too many other competing activities yesterday, probably mostly having to do with the Seuss-sanity that's been brewing all this week. (Seuss-sanity, is that a word? It is now.) I did manage to press a few dragon-templates into the hands of kids at the branch who hadn't read the book, but might enjoy the craft anyway. Honestly, I think the low-attendance for this program had more to do with timing, than anything else. I'll definitely have to try to resurrect this program at some future (more auspicious) date.

Waiting on Incarnate

The fantastic cover was the first thing to grab my attention, but the description sounds really interesting too.  Can't wait to try it!

Incarnate
by Jodi Meadows
HarperCollins

January 2012

NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Waiting on Dragonswood

I haven't heard a lot of buzz about this book, but I am so excited about it. Dragons? Fairies? Fleeing for one's life? Forbidden romance? Oh man, I am sold on this thing. January can't come soon enough. Everything's better with dragons.

Dragonswood
by Janet Lee Carey
Penguin Young Readers Group

January 2012

Wilde Island is in an uproar after the recent death of its king. The uneasy pact between dragons, fairies, and humans is fraying, and a bloodthirsty witch hunter with a hidden agenda whips villages into frenzies with wild accusations. Tess, a blacksmith’s daughter from a tiny hamlet near the mysterious Dragonswood, finds herself caught in the crosshairs of fate when she is accused of witchery and has to flee for her life along with her two best friends.

Not even Tess’s power to see the future can help the girls as they set off on their desperate journey, but she keeps having visions of a man wielding a sword. And when she finally meets him, Tess has no idea how to handle the magnetic attraction she feels for him, or the elusive call she hears from the heart of the Dragonswood.

In this epic romance, an ancient prophecy comes true in a way neither dragon, fairy, nor human would have predicted.

Iron Giant review

The Iron Giant
by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Laura Carlin
Random House Children's Books
September 2011

Hughes’s parable about peace, originally penned in 1968, is given new life with Carlin’s cut-paper, multimedia illustrations. In the first half of the book, after crashing to Earth, the Iron Giant re-assembles himself and wreaks havoc on the local farming community by eating its tractors and farm implements. After succumbing to a pit-trap, he is tamed by Hogarth, a boy who leads him to a scrap yard where the Iron Giant can finally eat his fill.

In the second half of the story, a space-bat-angel-dragon as large as Australia threatens the Earth. Several pages of concentric die-cut circles punch up the importance of its arrival. The formerly silent Iron Giant finds his voice to challenge the creature to an endurance test. Burnt nearly to a crisp after two consecutive trips to the surface of the sun, the space-bat-angel-dragon relents and agrees to sing peaceful music-of-the-spheres instead of waging war. The oversize illustrations are rendered in a restrained muted palette of blues, browns, reds, and blacks but exhibit great variety, sometimes emphasizing the shadowy, blurry nature of the giant, other times utilizing sharply cut lines and finely drawn small townsfolk. Occasional use of hand lettering amid the text lends drama and interest. Lengthy for a picture book, but a bit short for a novel, this is a smartly designed, highly illustrated novella in picture-book format.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
This review originally appeared in School Library Journal.

The Princess Curse review

The Princess Curse
by Merrie Haskell
Harper Collins
September 2011

In this re-telling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, 13 year-old Reveka is an apprentice herbalist in a medieval castle in Romania. She's striving to find some kind of herbal cure to the curse that seems to make the twelve princesses shoes fall apart, and causes them to be sleepy all day. Frighteningly, anyone who tries to observe the princesses at night is stricken by a coma. Whoever breaks the curse will be rewarded with either one of princess's hands in marriage, or a great sum of money. Reveka is hoping to come up with the cash to continue her studies as a master herbalist.

This is a richly imagined world full of little details that truly bring everything to life. I liked Reveka's sense of humor and pragmatic sensibility. After much research, she comes up with the makings of an invisibility cap, and discovers the dancing princesses underneath the castle. This portion reminded me of Beauty and the Beast as the princesses have been held captive by a zmeu - a shape-changing dragon who is trying to convince one of them to give up her mortal life to marry him and remain in the Underworld. Here, the story takes a definite turn towards the Persephone legend, as Reveka bargains for the princesses freedom in exchange for her own. While she agrees to marry the zmeu - and she's startled to learn that she even had a little crush on him in his human form of Prince Frumos, she's disgusted by his demonic form, that of Lord Dragos. Her father, and her loyal sheepherder friend Mihas attempt to rescue her from the underground kingdom with limited success. She holds out on eating or drinking anything, knowing that will bind her permanently to the land. In the meantime, Reveka decides to investigate the failing flora in her new kingdom, something which holds the key to zmeu's waning power. The pressing magical darkness is another hurdle Reveka has to overcome as she struggles to hold on to her former life aboveground. Her decision to finally give in and eat the pomegranate seeds is tempered by her clever ability to bargain a compromise with Dragos for visiting time in the world above where the princesses are happily married off to foreign princes, and even Reveka's father finds happiness with a new wife.

Despite their marriage and some stirrings of feelings between Reveka and Dragos, as well as the unrequited feelings that Mihas seems to have for Reveka, on the whole, this does not read like your typical love-triangle YA novel. Reveka's marriage feels more like something out of a fairy-tale and very much in line with the middle-grade audience for this book.


I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

The Last Dragon review

The Last Dragon 
by Jane Yolen illustrated by Rebecca Guay 
Dark Horse Comics
October 2011


Lush, detailed illustrations and lyrical fairytale-style writing about a small village faced by an ancient enemy dragon make this a not-to-be-missed graphic novel. As a stand-alone this would be a perfect introduction for readers new to graphic novels. I had expected the story to lean on the standard trope of the world's last known dragon being a misunderstood, lonely creature, who depends on the hero to keep magic alive in the world but instead I was pleasantly surprised to find that in this world, dragons are nothing more than overgrown, dangerous fire-breathing lizards which the human community is more than happy to wipe out.


The village healer's daughter Tansy is a bit of an outsider in the community and even her sisters, practical Rosemary and flibbertigibbet Sage, fail to understand her. She alone is underwhelmed when a blowhard (but gorgeous) youthful hero, Lancot, sweeps into town, bragging of his battle prowess. After the town begins to suspect that their missing sheep (and missing children!) are due to a young hungry dragon, naturally they call on the tow-headed stranger to solve their problem. In a panic, he realizes that his plan of boasting and bluffing his way through this hick town have backfired on him, and his thought bubbles and facial expressions in the next several panels are humorous indeed. Tansy comes to the rescue with a clever plan to outwit the dragon, using Lancot's true skill: kitemaking. It's a bit of a stretch to believe that battling a blast of dragon fire would reduce Lancot's Fabio-like locks to a manly, yet still handsome crewcut, but I was willing to roll with it. This is a very approachable graphic novel sure to appeal to both boys and girls, with gorgeous sepia-toned full-color illustrations and rich language. I highly recommend it!


I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

The Sunflower Sword review

The Sunflower Sword
by Mark Sperring, illustrated by Miriam Latimer
Andersen Press USA
January 2011


A young "knight" wishes more than anything to join the other warrior knights who are busy fighting dragons. He begs his mom for a sword... but she gives him a sunflower instead. He decides to make the best of it, whooshing and swooshing the sunflower to and fro. Bright, cartoon-like illustrations feature the little boy's haphazard outfit, including a dagged tunic, a colander helmet and shoes that look more like cowboy boots than medieval wear. The mother's floral nightgown and whimsical scarf make her appear decidedly modern, inviting readers to wonder if the whole story takes place in a his imagination.

After meeting a real dragon, who mistakenly thinks that he's offering a gift, they accidentally broker peace. Soon all the knights are rushing to the hilltop, bringing offers of flowers, hoping for dragon rides. I almost wondered if this would turn into a bit of a love story... as the little knight offers the dragon a sunflower, her tail takes the shape of a heart. I love finding little details like that in the illustrations. Observant readers will note a small white dove that appears on every page, emphasizing the message of peace.

I borrowed this book from the library.