Dragonborn (Struan Murray)

Dragonborn

The Dragonborn series, Book 1
Struan Murray
Dutton
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Alex's mother and father couldn't have been more different, but they loved each other - and Alex - very much. Dad was all laughter and stories and long nights watching the stars in "their" forest, a patch of woods near their home. Mom was all rules and structure and order, and when Alex's father died she only grew more restrictive. Lately, though, the girl has grown restless, like there's a burning scream deep inside that she can't seem to get out. Perhaps it's grief; it was only a few years ago Dad died, and all Alex has left of him is a small bag full of "treasures," little trinkets attached to various memories of her father. It's not until the strange, towering man appears in the woods and starts asking uncomfortable questions about that terrible night that Alex begins to wonder if there's something more to it... if perhaps the "scream" is something bigger, something fiercer, something out of one of Dad's magical stories: a dragon.
Unable to deny the truth anymore, Alex is whisked off to the hidden isle of Skralla, one of many "invisible" places where remnants of old magic and ancient beasts and beings persist in this age of humanity. Here, among other children (or "drakes") like herself, she must learn how to be a dragon, how to become the being of power and scale and flame and force that she truly is beneath her human form... but Alex has never been good with change. And her timing could not possibly be worse, as ancient forces are stirring that could rekindle the old war between dragons and humans. How can Alex find and make peace with her inner dragon when it seems the whole world is about to burn to ash?

REVIEW:

I freely admit the cover art by the talented Devin Elle Kurtz influenced my purchase, here. But... seriously, just go to a bookstore or do a quick search online and look at that gorgeous cover. And the endpapers in the hardback edition. Add in a blurb that promised plenty of dragon antics, and the money practically flew out of my pocket. So, did the story within hold up to that lofty promise? In general, yes, though there were some points that held it back a bit.
The setup here has many familiar parts: the twelve-year-old with the parent who died under mysterious circumstances and the other parent clearly keeping secrets, a birthday where the whole illusion comes crashing down, a hidden world of magic and monsters, the sanctuary/school and new host of friends and enemies, the discovery of a strange power and a terrible threat... they're tropes for a reason, and they tend to work more than they don't here. Alex is believably hesitant to embrace her dragonish self, and must find her own way to survive and succeed in an island filled with rowdy and truly dangerous companions; the ancient war left a deep resentment of all things human that lingers centuries later in the "Slumberers," the dragons who have been in human form so long that they've forgotten their true selves, even producing new generations ignorant of their true fire. The one human boy on the island, an orphan that the Skralla leaders didn't have the heart to turn away (they're hopeful that they can avoid another all-out war by learning to live with humans), is often bullied and in danger, and a dragon girl like Alex who can't or won't change is hardly a step above that on the rung of dignity. The teachers here do not coddle or intervene (save in cases of deadly harm), but they don't come from a place of aloofness or malice: life as a dragon is inherently dangerous, and a sheltered drake rarely survives to become a full-grown dragon, so the best way they can help the young ones is to make sure they learn how to defend themselves early on without expecting someone else to protect them. Though Alex has one friend, it doesn't help her find the confidence she truly needs, or the secret to becoming her true self - something nobody can really help her with, especially not when they apparently find it so easy.
Meanwhile, she learns some about the greater magical world and Skralla, and the nearby (by magical standards) hidden city of Undwin... places that are presented in what feels like a breathless rush, making them seem like blurs rather then solid, detailed settings. The whole story often has a breakneck feel to the pacing; I recall only a few times when the story slows down enough for the emotions and real sense of wonder to sink in. The dragons themselves are nicely described, in sensory details that make them feel very dragonish indeed; these aren't just "scaly puppies" but fiery, fearless, full of raw elemental power, the embodiments of forces beyond humanity's feeble reach. But other parts of Alex's expanded world sometimes feel just kinda thrown together with minimal follow through, such as the kaiju-like monsters that periodically attack Undwin and the menagerie of magical beasts kept on Skralla that feels more like a sideshow attraction and/or callback to other "hidden magical world" stories, a checkmark on the worldbuilding list - well, it's a hidden magical world, so there's gotta be a menagerie of dangerous magical beasties nearby - than a genuine and organic thing.
Other areas of the tale break away into more original territory, particularly as Alex must find her own way of surviving among dragons while stuck in human form and as she explores her "gwimmer," a rare gift that in her case lets her talk to the spirits of deceased dragons (not really a spoiler if it comes up early in the book). The latter is where Alex really shines. As the tale builds to the climax, some twists play out that I was expecting, but not quite in the way I thought they would, pleasantly surprising me. Alex also explores her own grief and must confront the issue of whether clinging to her memories and treasures is truly helping her cope, lending some weight to her journey. The ending offers some closure even as it sets up the next book in the series.
By the end, I'd enjoyed it much more than I didn't. I am very, very pleased with the dragons Murray created and featured. If the story had steered away from the more comfortable and familiar waters and trusted itself to chart its own course, and if it eased off on the throttle now and again to give itself a chance to breathe, it would've risen a bit in the ratings; I expect the target audience would likely rate it higher. I wouldn't rule out reading on... especially if I get sucked in by the cover art again.

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Houses With a Story (Seiji Yoshida)

Houses With a Story: A Dragon’s Den, a Ghostly Mansion, a Library of Lost Books, and 30 More Amazing Places to Explore

Seiji Yoshida, translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash
Harry N. Abrams
Fiction, MG? Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

From the mountaintop sanctuary of a dedicated astronomer to a modern bookshop whose proprietor is more than he seems, from a Victorian mansion with a playful young ghost to the dwelling of a dragon tamer who carries the mail across the mountains, artist Seiji Yoshida presents numerous fantastical homes with hints of the stories behind them and the people (or spirits) who live within.

REVIEW:

With strong shades of the whimsicality of Studio Ghibli films and the fantastical locales that feel so real you could step into them presented by James Gurney in his Dinotopia series, Houses With a Story is precisely what the title promises: a series of pictures and cutaways presenting all manner of imagined homes and imagined characters in imagined yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. These are the kind of imagination-stirring, thought-provoking images that one could pore over for hours, inspiring tales and perhaps compelling one to draw original homes and characters of one's own. At the end, Yoshida includes some sketches and a walkthrough of his art process for further inspiration.
That said, there were a few quibbles - nothing truly awful, but a few little nits and itches that held it down a bit in the ratings. For one thing, the "stories" are uneven; some locales have plenty of extra images and ideas about them, while others are there and done in a single page, as though the artist were less invested or interested. For another, I borrowed this via my library and the Hoopla app, and digital was perhaps not the best choice. Though my tablet is not top-of-the-line, it's not underpowered or underpixeled by any means, yet some of the "zoom" images included to show details had poor resolution, and navigation was sometimes confusing. Also, there was a certain sameness that settled in; there were a few outliers that were wildly imaginative, but many of the others started feeling... I suppose "safe" and "familiar" are the best words, not exploring the far corners of imagination but sticking to what was clearly familiar territory for the artist.
On the whole, though, this is a fun, undemanding book to page through on a lazy afternoon.

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Bea Wolf (Zach Weinersmith)

Bea Wolf

Zach Weinersmith, illustrations by Boulet
First Second Books
Fiction, MG? Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Humor/Poetry
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

Hey, wait! Hark now to a tale of heroes and monsters, of foam swords and green soda and tooth-rotting treats, of the ancient King Carl and the many who bore the cardboard crown after he passed into the teen-lands, and of the greatest warrior to ever raise her sugar-sticky fist against the fun-breakers and the bullies: Bea Wolf.
In the high hall of Treeheart, a magnificent stronghold of childhood wonder and hijinks, King Kai and his loyal band enjoy raucous merriment, trading jokes and telling stories and playing video games without parent-approved content... until the enraged neighbor, Mr. Grindle, can stand it no more. His mere touch instantly turns the wildest of children into a dull-eyed, dull-minded teenager, stripping them of their power and joy and ushering them into the doom of gray adulthood. All seemed lost, childhood forever ruined by the mustached monster - until an ally arrives to do battle with the fiendish foe.

REVIEW:

In this homage to the classic epic poem Beowulf, Weinersmith projects age-old concepts of mythology, heroism, loyalty, storytelling, and even the inevitability of entropy and decay of all great things onto the ultimate lost country of childhood.
Intentionally evoking the language and poetry of the original, as well as the alliteration and the dance of words, the tale relates the founding of the "kingdom" by the great king Carl, who - when he inevitably found the chin-whiskers and cracked voice of adolescence upon him, called for a pyre to mark his "death" and passed his crown on to future generations... knowing, even in his "afterlife" checking groceries at the supermarket, that his legend lives on. Heroes of old are evoked throughout, such as the twins who defied bedtime for seven whole days and gained wizardly powers before succumbing to sleep, and the girl whose Halloween candy haul remains unmatched. The current heir to Carl's throne, Kai, has raised the great high hall Treeheart, a place of feasting and merry-making and bedtime-defying for all brave children. But he faces a new threat: Mr. Grindle, "gloom's guardian, teacher of grief," a man who so embodies the epitome of boring, nasty, petty, cruel adulthood that he has become a monster, who only needs to lay one finger on a child to "begeezer" them, leach all their joy and imagination and magic (and there very much is magic involved in this story, which blurs the lines of reality and imagination to create a realm of epic marvels and dangers for the young and a gray, staid "afterlife" for the adults) and make them into phone-staring, rule-following young adults devoid of dreams. Treeheart technically partly overlays his property line, but it's the pure expression of childish joy and anarchy that truly drives the man into a rage, prompting him to defy the traps set to keep grown-ups out - a ladder laced with bug carapaces and boogers and other things repellent to their kind - to savage the very sacred hall itself, until no child dares set foot within. In Kai's time of need and woe, however, an ancient pact is recalled, and an ally from a distant kingdom (another suburb, up the "sliding sea," or river, from his) sends her greatest band of warriors to his aid. The chief of these warriors is the girl Bea Wolf, whose each fist holds the strength of sixty children. But is Mr. Grindle a match even for her bravery and might?
As in the original story, there is, even underneath the moments of triumph and humor, a sense of fate to both victories and defeats, as well as inevitable ending and tragedy, that even the greatest of kingdoms and mightiest of legends will inevitably fade. No child can escape adolescence forever (well, almost no child; there are a few tales mentioned in passing that hint at children who either managed to hold onto their dreams into adulthood or... did not grow up, though I may have been reading a little too much into those). Only the stories survive to inspire and inform the next heroes, passed down by young poets and bards from child to child like Carl's cardboard crown.
At the end, Weinersmith discusses the original Beowulf, the history of the surviving manuscripts, and how Bea Wolf was written to evoke the ancient epic, as well as a few pages of concept art that went into developing the idea. The art itself is worth noting, too, giving noteworthy children their own heraldic shields and creating distinct, occasionally surreal characters and monsters, matching the text in how it blurs lines between realism and fantasy.
The whole is an imaginative ode to timeless classical themes, a story that a clever child should enjoy, but which might speak also to those looking back at childhood from the other side of the teen-lands, hoping perhaps that magic and wonder and adventure yet remain somewhere in this gray and dreamless world, at least for the young.

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Sea Legs (Jules Bakes)

Sea Legs

Jules Bakes, illustrations by Niki Smith
Scholastic
Fiction, MG General Fiction/Graphic Novel
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Living aboard a boat would be a dream come true for most kids, but sometimes Janey gets tired of being adrift her whole life. Once in a while they drop anchor in an American port long enough for Mom and Dad to earn money, and she gets to go to school and make friends, but soon enough the red sails on the Merimaid rise and it's off across the sea again. Janey's determined to keep in touch with Rae, the best and closest friend she's ever made, but phone calls are expensive and letters sporadic and hard to mail. Then, at dock in the Bahamas, Janey meets teenager Astrid. Like Janey, Astrid lives aboard a boat, but otherwise they're nothing alike, challenging Janey to rethink her own life and her place in the world.

REVIEW:

This was an impulse borrow via the library and the Hoopla app to change up genres a bit; it's been a while since I read a graphic novel, especially one not in the fantasy/sci-fi genres, and I was looking for sea-related ideas for a personal project. Inspired by the author's own childhood aboard a boat built by her parents, Sea Legs is a coming-of-age tale as young Janey learns to navigate the difficult waters of an unusual childhood and different ways people can be friends. She loves her parents, and there are many wonderful things about life aboard the Merimaid - starlight, flying fish, colorful new places and amazing new foods - but sometimes it's tough when all she wants is friends she can see every day and a teacher who isn't her own mother.
Astrid is almost everything Janey is not: confident to the point of arrogance, cynical, (apparently) fearless, and independent to a fault. Their friendship is more a matter of proximity and a dearth of other minors on the docks than anything else; most other boat-dwellers are adults. Sometimes Janey resents Astrid's dismissive attitude and how she treats the younger girl like she's silly or stupid, but she also wants to be like Astrid... not seeing (at least not at first) how all the qualities she admires are the result of a harder life than Janey can imagine. The fact that Astrid keeps coming back to hang out with Janey speaks to something Astrid needs in a friend, too, but can't say out loud, not even to herself. Even as they form a fragile, fractious, and unlikely bond, however, the shifting seasons and tides threaten to destroy everything. The seas are never still, and neither is a life lived on the water, but sometimes you can find something to carry with you when you go.
The story moves decently. The art is bright and full of tropical colors and exotic locales, bringing to life a bygone childhood and the wonders (and hardships) of growing up on a boat. I enjoyed it.

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Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment (Anna James)

Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment
The Chronicles of Whetherwhy series, Book 1
Anna James
Flamingo Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: On the island of Whetherwhy, everyone has a little magic, each influenced by the four seasons, from the creation of spring through the learning and revelation of summer, transitions and transformations of fall, and destruction and endings of winter. But only a few are enchanters, with power rooted in all four seasons. Enchanters can weave powerful spells from the threads of Whetherwhy's magic, even creating lifelike "Tangle" creatures of pure magic, and must learn to control their gifts properly lest things go terribly awry. Some even rise as far as the queen's personal retinue! That is why, at age thirteen, all children are tested to reveal their particular season of magic, and enchanters are whisked off to Thistledown Academy in the capital of Stormgrove.
Juniper Quinn wants none of that. She loves reading about adventures in books, but doesn't think she has it in her to do great things... so only her twin brother, Rafferty, knows that she has enchanter magic. She'd much rather stay in their small town of Honeyvale with their bookbinder family than go off to a big city like Stormgrove, away from everyone she knows and loves - and besides, everyone seems to think enchanters are arrogant snobs looking down on the rest of Whetherwhy. But there's no tricking the testers, so - like it or not - she's soon on her way to Thistledown. Here, she learns it's not so bad being an enchanter. She might even get to enjoy it... but from the start there are secrets and dangers afoot, starting with an attack on the way to the academy itself that robs her of her magic.
Rafferty, meanwhile, has never lived apart from his sister. But when she's taken away, he realizes that he wants to see the wider world himself, and what better place to start than Stormgrove? He applies to various printers and gets accepted as an apprentice in a bindery not far from Thistledown. What a great way to start an adventurous life, and how surprised Juniper will be to find her twin brother right next door in the big city! But being away from his family for the first time exposes him to a different Whetherwhy than he knew, a place where enchanters are distrusted, inequality is rampant, and secret societies seek to level the playing field. Soon, he begins to wonder which side he's on - and if he can still trust his own twin sister, now that she's a Thistledown student on the other side of the academy walls.

REVIEW: I mostly got this because the second book in the series intrigued me; I liked the concept of the "Tangles", magical constructs with lives of their own (with their dark counterpart "Knots"), and it looked light and whimsical. But at some point it simply did not deliver on its best promises, staying in the shallow end of a concept that kept teasing at deeper and more interesting waters.
It starts out as just what it promised on the cover, a fun and somewhat whimsical fantasy adventure, and if it isn't exactly original, it has that worn-in-shoes comfortable familiarity of tropes done decently. Juniper and Rafferty Quinn are decent enough characters for the story and world they inhabit, twins who share everything except their magic; while Rafferty is a strong spring mage, using his creative gifts to embroider beautiful designs for the family's bookbinder business, Juniper struggles to hide the enchantment powers that she knows will separate her from her loved ones and thrust her into a life she doesn't feel ready to live. It doesn't help that their own father makes a comment about enchanters being stuck-up snobs (before he knows about her gifts), and others in Honeyvale agree with him. But when her powers are revealed, everyone comes together in support and doesn't say a bad word about enchanter magic again, so that little plot point fizzles out... the first of many hints at greater conflicts and prejudices that gets lip service but little to no actual page presence or follow-through. The reader is told more than once that enchanters are an elite class of people, viewed as considering themselves better than the average Whetherwhy citizen with their smaller magics... but we barely ever see people in Whetherwhy actively using their magic anyway, and we never see enchanters actually treating people bad (or people being treated poorly as a direct result of enchanters existing). The classism that exists is a little clunky and is the sort that seems like it would exist even without magic at all, tied to wealth more than magic itself, enchanters being so rare that you just don't get whole families of them; Juniper has two classmates from wealthy families, neither of whom built their wealth solely on enchanters, one of them being a spoiled snob and the other embracing Thistledown's efforts to teach students to do most everything without magic or even servants, including gardening and mending and cleaning. How are students from this system coming out as the uppity snobs that everyone complains about (save the few who started out that way)... or why is everyone so jealous of powers we only really see used in moments of danger? There's talk of increasing numbers of "Knots" (malevolent free-roaming magical constructs that are the result of misfired spells or other magical accidents), but they seem too rare and random to really account for the resentment that drives so much of one half of the plot.
Anyway, while Juniper is dealing with the academy and the theft of her magic, Rafferty sets out on his own big adventure, and soon finds himself pulled into a dark conspiracy of anti-enchanter agitators. At first, they seem not so bad: surely they're just studying magic and enchantment on their own, and if there really is a way to share powers so those with less get a little more, is that so terrible? Maybe he can be close to his sister again... but he also starts to listen to the wrong voices and takes her prolonged silence in response to his letters the wrong way, thinking she's becoming elitist like everyone seems to think all enchanters become as they develop their magic. He has a fellow apprentice, Jessy, and both are pulled into the secret Papercut Society via an exceptional plot convenience that only crops up once Rafferty is in town... which is odd, as Jessy has been an orphan for much longer than he's been there and the coincidence that drags them in involves the deaths of her parents. It's like she was sitting there twiddling her thumbs waiting for a main character to show up and kickstart her adventure. In fact, too much of the plot starts to feel like people and events were sitting around waiting for the Quinn twins to come along in order to start moving. I understand there's going to be some level of plot convenience in many stories, but it started feeling like a bit of a stretch, even for a title aimed at younger readers.
The ending leaves a few questions dangling for future volumes, but by then I was no longer interested; it was all too shallow and glossy and neat, a smothering hug of an overprotective storyteller bound and determined not to let anything too perilous reach little ears. There's even a dragon for quite literally no reason that needed a dragon. I am an absolute sucker for dragons, but when even I just shrugged my shoulders after its brief appearance - after the characters made a point of being amazed that one even existed when they've been gone so long that even Whetherwhy, the isle of magic, considers them mere myths, only for everyone to dismiss it the moment it was out of sight, no attempt to follow up with the person who apparently captured or smuggled it into the city, no questions, no lingering hint of it as an ongoing threat, no nothing, like young toddlers whose concept of object permanence is not yet fully formed - that's a waste of a dragon.
By the end, I found the story just plain lacked the sparkle and punch to even keep it at a four-star Good rating. Characters never really surprise or change much, plot points are telegraphed with the subtlety of a jackhammer, and it wraps up too neatly (yet not neatly at all given all the unacknowledged issues and questions that should be dealt with but aren't). There's real potential and some nice descriptions of the magic and world, but James just bubble-wrapped it too much, shying away from any of the truly dark and interesting bits that would've kept me satisfied and reading onward.

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An Occasionally Happy Family (Cliff Burke)

An Occasionally Happy Family
Cliff Burke
Clarion
Fiction, MG General Fiction/Humor
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Theo Ripley used to have a happy family. He and his big sister Lauren used to be close. And he knew, above all, that his mom and dad loved them both very much. But then Mom grew sick and died. It's been a couple years now, and Theo is still mired in pain and grief, his sister doesn't talk to him like she used to, and his father... well, his father clearly tries, but just does not listen.
This summer, Dad surprises the kids with a week at Big Bend National Park. Did he even ask Theo or Lauren if they wanted to spend July in a sweltering desert, part of it in a tent even? Of course not. But what Theo wants or needs never matters anyway, so off the Ripleys go - and, with them, goes the invisible baggage of a grief that Theo has never had a chance to fully process, which may finally burst out at the worst possible time... just when Dad's ulterior motive for the trip becomes apparent when he mentions that he's been speaking to an old friend from college.

REVIEW: As a general rule, far too often grown-ups just don't listen to kids, not really - especially kids who need to be heard the most. Oh, adults say they'll listen, and may be quiet when a child finally talks, but too often they've already decided what the child really means, or what the child really needs (even if they don't know it), and they dismiss anything they hear that contradicts those ideas. Thus, kids like Theo learn not to bother speaking up at all - and parents like his father convince themselves that a child not speaking up means there's nothing to worry about, nothing that can't be dismissed as irrelevant. So when Dad finally starts slowly moving on with his life after the tragic death of a spouse, he has already made up his mind that his children are ready, too - or that they'll get over any misgivings without an issue... a notion that gets blown across the desert in the events that unfold during the Ripley family vacation.
Early on, it's clear that there's still a massive hole in the middle of the Ripley family, one far bigger than the mother they all miss. Dad steadfastly refuses to talk to his children about it anymore, and Lauren seems to have pulled away from both him and her brother, retreating into researching every idea and planning every move - a trait that actually comes in handy, as Mr. Ripley seems utterly immune to planning ahead. He announces his trip to Big Bend National Park by touting it as "free" because a friend of his went back in the 1980's and didn't have to pay a dime to stay there... which is not at all true in the 2020's, and which he wouldn't have known at all until they showed up if Lauren hadn't done her homework. But Dad is determined to go, and determined that his kids will have a good time. Becoming "Nature Dad" has been part of his coping mechanism, one that his children saw as a simple eccentricity until they found out they were expected to actually camp with him in the desert. Theo, meanwhile, is more of an indoor boy than the outdoorsy type, a trait not entirely disconnected from poor experiences as a Cub Scout. He retreats into his hand-drawn graphic novels, though the only people he can share them with are a scant handful of friends - friends who are closer to lunchroom acquaintances, none of them close enough for him to confide in, or to see the pain beneath the panels. Through words and actions (or lack thereof), Theo has learned that his feelings don't really matter to anyone, that he can't discuss them even if they did. Still, he manages to cope, for all that he's still lonelier than he knows how to express (and when he does express his frustrations, naturally his father shrugs them off). This might have worked as they navigate various bumps and challenges and odd encounters, until Dad finally drops the bombshell about the real reason for the vacation: meeting his new girlfriend, one he hadn't even hinted about to them about until they're at Big Bend. Suddenly, the unprocessed feelings of both Lauren and Theo, and the many things the family has decided (without explicitly saying they've decided) not to discuss, are about to come crashing down - and this time, none of them can escape the fallout.
Neither Theo nor Lauren are entirely without fault in how they handle situations, but their father also causes a lot of trouble by pretending he can treat his kids as he did when they were much younger and less scarred by life and grief, sweeping them along wherever he chooses to go like babies strapped in a stroller - and if they kick up a fuss, well, just wait until they tire themselves out, because they can't possibly know their own minds. His own grief has blinded him, and his own healing process did not include checking in with the rest of his family to keep them on the same page, or at least somewhere in the same book; somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows this, but won't admit it, even to himself. Theo's frustrations build believably throughout the story, sometimes directed at his father or his sister or even utter strangers, until it all has nowhere to go but into his graphic novels, and finally out at the people around him. A few of the incidents seem a little random and without follow-through, but the whole comes together well enough for a decently cathartic conclusion where everyone has to learn to see each other, hear each other, and grow a little.

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The Lost Ryu (Emi Watanabe Cohen)

The Lost Ryū
Emi Watanabe Cohen
Levine Querido
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Kohei Fujiwara should not remember the big ryū - the large flying dragons of Japan, who disappeared after the end of World War II - but somehow he does: a clear vision of the creatures marching down the street while a great Western dragon circles overhead. It's a memory that stands out clearly, because it's about the only time he has seen the face of his grandfather Ojiisan without anger clouding his features. The man he knows now is old, bitter, and often drunk, flying into rages and barely speaking two words to the boy, though his daughter, Kohei's mother, keeps trying to insist everything is fine. Maybe it's because old Ojiisan has no little ryū of his own. Most everyone has a tiny dragon companion, like Kohei's own little pink Yuharu, but Ojiisan's ryū is long gone. When his grandfather falls ill and looks to be dying, Kohei is determined to find the lost ryū and bring it home, in the hopes it will heal the bitter old man's heart. Enlisting the aid of his new neighbors, the American-born girl Isolde and her Yiddish-speaking little western dragon Cheshire, Kohei and Yuharu embark on a secret quest... but what they find changes everything Kohei thought he knew about his parents, his grandparents, and his vivid, impossible memory of the last big ryū of Japan.

REVIEW: At first, this looks like a fairly straightforward alternate-historical fiction tale, one set in postwar Japan in a world where little talking dragons are common family companions. Once, the tiny ryū had larger cousins, ones big enough and powerful enough to fly; the household versions may speak and be very intelligent, but they can barely even hover, even in the midst of a rainstorm - water being the source of ryu magic. When the big ryū disappeared in the wake of the "atom dragon" attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seems that the greater part of Kohei's grandfather's spirit left as well. Now, the old man barely talks except to complain and yell, and it only got worse after Kohei's father drowned while away from home during a typhoon. Kohei understands the value of family and family lore, and he feels keenly the holes in his heart where he should have stories of his parents and grandparents and ancestors beyond, the anger radiating off Ojiisan and the sometimes perfunctory attention from his stressed and grieving mother. He becomes convinced that finding one of the big ryū like the ones he remembers is the key to unlocking the family secrets and his grandfather's withheld affection, but nobody will tell him where they went after the war and why they never returned. Upon learning that the new renters in the family's building are from America, with a western dragon companion, Kohei's hopes rise; his one memory of an American dragon was the great western flier from his memory, and maybe even seeing a big American dragon will be close enough to a flying ryū for his grandfather... only for hope to come crashing down almost immediately. Young Isolde speaks some Japanese, but not much, and her dragon Cheshire is smaller even than little Yuharu, mostly speaking Yiddish (when the shy creature speaks at all). Worse, Isolde carries her own burdens. The two don't get off on the best foot, but they soon become friends through adversity, realizing that the other is their best and/or only hope of getting where they need to be in life. When Ojiisan's health takes a sudden turn, the quest becomes more urgent... and, as the children seek a new ryū for the old man (their next best hope if they can't figure out how to find the missing big ryū), the story takes an interesting turn.
Throughout the tale, language and the words used (or not used) are a theme, particularly the often subtle variants on Japanese phrases and written kanji (there is an afterword that goes into this in more detail). Kohei's mother's favorite phrase tries to tell him everything is fine, a dismissal of adversity, as if broken hearts and broken feelings can be swept away like the shattered glass left by Grandfather's tantrums... a lie Kohei comes to hate. One of the last things his late father told him before disappearing was to never give up and keep trying... though for what the boy doesn't understand at the time. A silver lighter that belongs to his father carries a kanji inscription whose exact meaning has several interpretations, and may not mean what he thinks it means as he struggles to fill in the missing pieces of the family puzzle on his own. And Cheshire's first language, Yiddish, ties into greater themes that become more central to the story, wartime traumas and losses experienced by the parents of a generation that may not have personally suffered the privations and faced the battles of a world war, but are living with the scars and consequences nonetheless, anxieties and lost stories that warp their own young lives. In seeking the big ryū, Kohei is inadvertently kicking over a stone and uncovering all manner of dark, scuttling shadows and truths about his family, his country, and the world at large, making clear much of what confused him. In this, he and Isolde are closer than he ever imagined. Ultimately, the parents who thought they could shelter children from the harsh truths of the past end up doing more harm than good with their silence.
The story sometimes wanders a bit, and there are some elements that emerge out of the blue or are set up to have greater importance than they ultimately do. I also thought there needed to be a little more follow-through and ramifications of an Earth with dragons and hints of magic skewing history just a touch to the side, though I'm likely overthinking the concept. Part of me wonders if Cohen intends a sequel to deal with some blatant loose threads, even if the main plot wraps up here. Overall, though, for an impulse read, I was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected tale.

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The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith (Rob Renzetti)

The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith #3
The Horrible Bag series, Book 3
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Zenith Maelstrom never wanted to go back to the world of GrahBag after escaping the first time; he only returned to rescue his sister, and inadvertently became tangled up in a rebellion against the remnants of the Wurm's forces and the Wurm's last vestiges, the ravenous cloak known as the Wraith. Still, that was a problem for the people of GrahBag, not two outsiders from Earth, both of whom are just children. Only Apogee betrayed him, literally throwing him out of the nightmare world and sealing the gates. Worse, his parents are convinced that something terrible happened to him when he witnessed his sister's "abduction"; they discovered his journal recounting his earlier trips to GrahBag and think it's a record of nightmares triggered by the trauma. Zenith is running out of ways to stall them, and is growing more desperate to find a way back to GrahBag, especially as days on Earth are months or years there... only the portals in the bag are still sealed up tight.
Unexpectedly, one day he finds his chance when a new portal opens in an alley - a salty mouth spewing monster-filled seawater (and foul language). Zenith has nothing on him but the clothes on his back, but he knows better than to wait for a better opportunity, so he leaps through... only to find that things have gone from bad to worse. The world of GrahBag is literally coming apart at the seams, and while Apogee's rebellion is still fighting, the Wraith's minions have seized control of the Collectary tree whose chalk-slate leaves literally write (or erase) reality... and it won't be long before there isn't even a world for them to fight over.

REVIEW: The third and (presumed) final installment of the Horrible Bag series pulls the story back on track after a somewhat weaker middle book, delivering an action-packed, intense finale to a series that, for a middle-grade title, pulls off some surprisingly dark moments as Zenith and Apogee finally confront the Wraith and the consequences of their own actions.
Unlike the previous book, Zenith remembers full well what happened to his (once older, now younger) sister and the world of GrahBag, in part because he took a page from Apogee's book and carefully writes recollections down every day, with a doodle of the bag itself; if he doesn't see the bag, after a while the memories slip away to be replaced with a more mundane version of events. He hates seeing his parents devastated by his sister's disappearance, just as he blames himself for not getting her and his best friend home safely, but there's nothing he can do except make himself remember and wait for a chance to get back - only to find himself in literal hot water, emerging in GrahBag's notorious Scalding Sea. Things only get worse from there, as he learns he and his sister are in no small part responsible for why the world is falling into chaos around them; the Scribe of the Collectary has found Apogee's old physics book and is haphazardly inserting whatever scientific concepts strike his fancy into GrahBag's reality. Zenith encounters the personification of the Grandfather Paradox of time travel (who is, understandably, rather paranoid) and Shrödinger's Cat (complete with the box in which it both is and is not alive), the latter of which becomes a surprisingly helpful companion. Zenith tries once more to rescue his sister - refusing to listen when she tells him she does not need rescuing - but his efforts backfire terribly, leading to some interesting plot developments that ultimately expose the roots of the Maelstrom siblings' ties to GrahBag and the origins of the Wurm itself. Things come together for a rather satisfying conclusion that doesn't erase all the damage done or losses incurred, one which leaves just enough of a crack in the door for future installments.

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The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment (Ron Renzetti)

The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment #2
The Horrible Bag series, Book 2
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Prepare for Battle! reads the note on Zenith Maelstrom's nightstand, but for the life of him he can't remember why he wrote it. Did it mean a game with his friend Kevin Churl? They've spent much of their summer together, except when Zenith has to watch his kid sister Apogee... but something in the back of his mind bothers him, like he's forgotten something very important. It's not until he finds Apogee in the basement trying to open an ugly old leather bag that he remembers about their terrible journey through the land of GrahBag - and how it's his fault that his sister is four years old instead of fourteen. He promised her when they left that he'd fix it, that they'd go back, but for some reason it's hard to hold onto that thought when he's in the real world and away from the horrible bag. Then Apogee forces his hand; she sneaks back through to the other world while he's asleep. With Kevin tagging along, he reluctantly goes back into the realm of monsters, only to find it's even worse than before. The Wurm lives on as a soul-sucking Wraith, and the very land seems to be dying. He and Apogee only barely escaped with their lives last time, and this time they may not be so lucky...

REVIEW: Taking up a short while after the previous volume ended, it also wastes little time getting going, though Zenith dithers a bit overlong once he realizes that he can't even trust his memories when he's out of sight of the horrible bag that's the portal to GrahBag. He also finds that he has two memories of the past, one in which Apogee is his protective kid sister and another where she's always been a little kid (the latter of which being the reality that their parents and the rest of the world accept)... which is he to believe? Which does he want? Part of him likes being the older sibling for once, while another doesn't feel at all prepared to protect a young kid as a big brother should (and as Apogee did when she was the big sister, as irritating as he sometimes found her). Worse, he realizes that, by abandoning GrahBag after their confrontation with the Wurm, he and his sister inadvertently made a bad place even worse; those who were loyal to the Wurm were outraged at the loss of their leader, while those who opposed it tried at last to revolt but lacked a leader, the instigator of the attack having fled their world after throwing it into utter chaos. What kind of person, let alone brother, is Zenith if he can't even face the consequences of his actions, however unintentional? As he reunites with old companions (and some old enemies), he finds new dangers and problems to solve; the titular Eternal Tower is a truly diabolical prison with mind-warping and devious traps. As before, there's a sense of very real danger for the kids, and Zenith has to take his lumps and learn lessons the hard way.
The story barely lost a half star for a sense of it being rushed, for Kevin's involvement feeling extraneous (he's sidelined pretty quickly and hardly mentioned afterwards), and for ending on an actual cliffhanger this time. I also get a bit irked by plot points that feel drawn out because people won't spit out what they know or what they need despite ample opportunity (regardless of target age). Still, I'm invested enough to finish off the trilogy.

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The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things (Rob Renzetti)

The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things #1
The Horrible Bag series, Book 1
Rob Renzetti
Penguin Workshop
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: The ugly old black leather bag on the doorstep moaned; Zenith is sure of it. He doesn't know where it came from or who it was for or why it was left in front of the house, but he knows that it moaned when he first saw it. When he tries to pick it up, it pricks his finger - and seems to wake up, disgorging a monstrous thing of slime and hair and too many legs around a darkly beating heart. This is the last thing a boy who's already been grounded for mischief-making needs... and when the "shlurp" grabs his older sister and babysitter, Apogee, and pulls her back into the bag, Zenith has to get her back. Thus he finds himself leaping into the land of GrahBag, a world of surreal horrors, where every monster is worse than the last and even "friends" may turn out to be foes.

REVIEW: I needed a palate cleanser after the previous disappointing audiobook, and this looked like a quick way to fill out the rest of a work shift, having a great title that promised spooky shenanigans. Happily, it delivers in full.
Kicking off from the first sentence of the first page, the boy Zenith finds himself with a monstrous bag to deal with... and, soon, a monster from within the monstrous bag. Almost as bad is Apogee, the sister he used to be close to until an incident a few years back that transformed her from his comrade-in-mischief to a preteen prison guard/third parent who would rather lecture him about responsibility than play. As creeped out as Zenith is by the bag and the "shlurp" monster, he's initially more worried about how letting a horrible bag into the house will affect his grounding sentence, even as he wishes he could still confide in his sister. Before long, the matter is taken out of her hands when Apogee is abducted. Zenith wastes little time jumping into the bag afterward... and if he found the outside creepy, with its mismatched assortment of hides and leathers, the inside is even worse... and that's before he makes the transition to GrahBag proper, a place that makes nightmares seem downright quaint. Zenith tries to outwit and outthink the place, but the land of the sickly green skies and red sun always seems to have another twisted trick up its sleeve, and even when he thinks he's getting ahead, he may be digging himself into more trouble. He picks up a companion of sorts in the form of a little gargoyle, but he can't expect others to fight his battles or solve his problems. Nor is Apogee entirely helpless or stupid. The pacing's pretty quick (as one would expect from a middle grade title) and there are a few fun moments (and a few bits of crude humor - again, as one comes to expect from middle grade), but it also has genuinely creepy encounters and moments where Zenith must confront his own mistakes and fallibility. The ending sets up the conflict for the second book nicely, doing a good enough job baiting the hook that I've already downloaded the next two titles in the trilogy.

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Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen (Jim C. Hines)

Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen
Jim C. Hines
Jim C. Hines, publisher
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since her best friend Andre vanished without a trace, twelve-year-old Tamora Carter has struggled to cope. Was he kidnapped? Did he run away? Have the police given up already? At least she has an outlet for her frustrations in roller derby. But one day, after practice, she finds something very strange behind the skating rink: a pair of real, live goblins! They claim they came here from another world, but won't tell her where - though a portal immediately makes Tamora suspect that their appearance may have something to do with Andre's disappearance. Maybe the reason he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth is that he really did vanish, at least off this Earth. With help from some unexpected allies, Tamora sets out to unravel the mystery, locate the portal, and get her best friend back - but the goblins aren't the only threats she'll have to watch out for, and it's going to take more than roller derby trash talk to win against real magic.

REVIEW: After some disappointing reads this month (and other disappointments and stresses in general, including a major appliance failure), I just wanted something simple and straightforward. Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen delivers exactly what it promises, with a gutsy girl who will stop at nothing to bring her best friend home, even if it means facing down goblins and pixies and even a dragon - and worse. If there's not a whole lot more to it than that, well, it never promises more.
From her first appearance in a roller derby match as one of the Grand Ridge Honey Badgers (game name: T-Wrex), Tamora is no shrinking violet of a character, a girl with strength and guts and the grit to get back up when knocked down, even if she sometimes doesn't listen and forgets that there is no "I" in a team. During and after the game, the reader learns about the disappearance of Andre and two other kids from town some weeks back, and how it's gnawing at her, part of what drives her recklessness on skates. The goblins quickly cue her (and the reader) into the fantastic elements of the story, and the overall tone; though they jeer and threaten, their stilted language and silly appearance and behavior promise blunted corners and nothing too horrific, for all that the threats become real as Tamora digs deeper to figure out what's going on and what it has to do with her missing friend. This is, ultimately, like the other side of a portal fantasy, as Andre and two other kids have been whisked away to a fantasy world (hardly a spoiler, when goblins turn up in the first chapter and the portal concept is quickly established after that) and she must work to help bring them home before something terrible happens to them. Joining her is her older brother Mac, a nonverbal autistic boy who mostly speaks using a tablet computer, and the twin sister of one of the other missing kids who seems to have a lingering, if subconscious, psychic connection to the trio. Tamora starts and remains the primary driving force of the adventure, even when she learns that she can't do it all herself and needs a team to succeed. Her father even becomes an ally rather than an obstacle or non-character (as is common in middle-grade fantasies), and actually trusts his daughter. Her half-Korean heritage becomes a strength, particularly when it comes to the quirks of the language translation spells that allow people from the nameless fantasy world to communicate in English. Things move pretty well, with Tamora and her companions facing many dangers, sometimes stumbling but always climbing back up on their feet to keep trying. It all wraps up reasonably well, without too many surprises (at least for grown-ups reading it), leaving some "sequel potential" as the saying goes should Hines ever decide to pursue it. (This was originally a Kickstarter project, so I have no idea if he's intending to write more or not.) It's enjoyable for what it is, offering characters interesting enough to care about and plenty of fun, sometimes perilous adventure.

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The Last Dragon on Mars (Scott Reintgen)

The Last Dragon on Mars
The Dragonships series, Book 1
Scott Reintgen
Aladdin
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Throughout the cosmos, every heavenly body, from the brightest sun to the smallest moonlet, manifests an avatar in the form of a dragon. When Earth's dragon Gaia decided her world needed life, she sacrificed herself, eventually enabling humans to evolve and take her legacy to the moon and other worlds - but nowhere else in the entire solar system had a habitable biosphere. Clearly, in order to terraform a place, the world's dragon avatar must die... but why must it be a self-sacrifice? Would it really matter how they died? Through war and treachery, humans slaughtered the great dragon Ares of Mars, to claim a second planet for themselves. Only with his last breath, Ares cursed his world. Now, there is air, and with it plants and animals, but the soil is barren, the skies lashed with killer storms, and every living thing that sprung from Ares's death is half-mad with hatred for humans, an infection that even spreads to imported pets and livestock. Earth's children may live on the planet, but it will never be theirs.
The night the boy was born on Mars, the great moon dragon Luna flew overhead, giving his mother the perfect inspiration for his name... the last gift she would ever give him. Years later, the orphaned Lunar Jones lives with a dozen other children, scraping the storm-torn wastes beyond the city gates for scrap and relics that will keep them all fed for another day on a world that's slowly dying around them. Fleeing another crew while fighting over a prize, he ends up in a forbidden military zone - and discovers an impossible secret: a dragon. And when young Dread chooses Lunar as his dragoon, the captain mentally bonded to the near-godlike being, the scrapper finds himself plunged into a new world that's far more dangerous than any storm-wracked wasteland, with stakes higher than he can imagine - for, if he and Dread fail the challenges that lie ahead, the last vestiges of Mars will fail with them.

REVIEW: I'd heard good things about this book, and the concept sounded very fun. Dragons as living avatars of heavenly bodies - able to power "dragonships" that turn the transit time from Earth to Mars into mere hours? A future with tech so advanced that power generators can spontaneously generate complex machinery and matter from microchip blueprints? How cool is all that? Unfortunately, the answer turned out to be rather less cool the more I read, until by the end I was left with a bitter, ashen taste in my mouth that managed to drop the rating below three stars.
Early on, I rather enjoyed the ideas and the world, and was willing to roll with the implausibilities for the sake of a good story - and it did indeed start out good. Lunar's the sort of scrappy underdog character that's a genre staple for a reason, fighting not just for his own survival but the found family back at the "relocation house" (basically an orphanage where Martian children wait for one of the meager apprenticeships or jobs to open up and pluck them out of poverty). He even extends his protective instincts to members of the rival crew that left him for dead, when he finds they also abandoned one of their own to die in the wilderness. When he discovers Dread in a cavern beneath the base, he also discovers one rogue general's off-the-books mission and a collection of young elite soldiers, all hand-picked and trained from early childhood in the hopes that the growing young dragon would choose one of them as his dragoon... but, instead, as implied by the foreshadowing of Luna's presence over his birth, it's Lunar who gets the honor. This does not instantly transform him into a flawless hero, though. He stumbles, he fumbles, he tries to become someone he isn't... and Dread is not some all-powerful and wise god, being young and inexperienced and possibly a touch mentally unstable, with terrifying bursts of rage out of the blue where he even threatens Lunar's life. The boy has to earn his place and his title, as well as the respect of the soldiers who become his crew - and, of course, when the inevitable major crisis hits, he and the rest find themselves subject to a trial by literal fire as the fate of Mars hangs in the balance. Along the way are memorable encounters with numerous dragons, all of which are more akin to Greco-Roman deities than humans: immensely powerful beyond human understanding, but with outsized personalities and flaws, prone to ever-shifting alliances and rivalries and bickering in which fragile mortal lives can easily be extinguished as casually as swatting a gnat. Sure, several parts are strongly reminiscent of other works (dragons bearing full crews in harness reminiscent of Naomi Novik's Temeraire, the elite military school where an unconventional underdog must prove themselves like in Orson Scott Card's classic Ender's Game, etc.), but The Last Dragon on Mars should have been a gripping, wild ride through a fantastic solar system... so what went wrong?
From early on, I had a slight itch in the back of my mind about the idea of Earth's avatar dragon/essentially-goddess Gaia sacrificing herself for life... and not just for life, but seemingly for humans. (Did dinosaurs even exist in this alternate solar system, or is this more of a Creationist take that glosses over any other species than H. sapiens, and by extension the many rich and wondrous biomes that came before us, as either nonexistent or irrelevant because "chosen by the Creator"?) Then Luna, devoted to the will and memory of Gaia (as all moons tend to be devoted to their "masters", their planets), decides to help humans. She chooses to let herself be seen and make contact with the mortals, explaining concepts of mental bonds and what dragons could do when paired with human innovation and technology (the "dragonships" and more), encouraging them to spread through the solar system even knowing that there are no other habitable worlds out there and there won't be any unless one of her kin is also willing to sacrifice themselves as Gaia did.
Why would she do this? Why would this not lead to trouble? This is never questioned, because the right of Gaia's blessed mortals to go wherever they want to, to plant their flag on whatever soil - no matter how hostile - and call it their own, is undisputed.
When Ares (understandably) refuses to give the children of Earth his planet Mars, the humans and Luna conspire to slaughter him in cold blood... which makes him the bad guy. I get that Lunar was born long after the original would-be colonists struck down Ares, but still, the growing sense that humans are somehow owed the planet - and, by extension, anywhere else they choose to go - simply by virtue of being humans... does anyone else smell more than a little "manifest destiny" doctrine, here? Couple that with how Lunar's first-person narration kept throwing in anachronistic references that seemed out of place for his character and his situation - such as comparing one woman's ponytail to swinging like a clock pendulum in a far future world where pendulum clocks would likely be obscure ancient history, or casually dropping a reference about how he and his companions are expected to save an entire planet while being younger than the driving age on Earth (which assumes that teenagers on Earth still undergo the rite of passage of learning to drive a motorized vehicle, that driving ages have not changed in hundreds of years, and that a Martian boy living a hand-to-mouth hardscrabble life with minimal access to education would know or care about a bit of trivia like that) - and later developments that enforce the "divine right of kings" in a rigid social hierarchy of unquestioned masters and obedient servants (with trouble coming when the servants dislike cruel, harmful treatment from their master and try to change the status quo), and I found my suspension of disbelief plummeting through the stratosphere.
By the end, despite some high-adrenaline space battles and world-shifting stakes, I no longer cared what happened to the people or the dragons... which was just as well, as the last twist almost had me groaning as it took the very last vestigial flutter of suspension of disbelief and stomped it flat. After the early promise and wonderful concepts, little was left but ashes and disappointment... though I will admit the dragons could be quite awesome.

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Grimpow: The Invisible Road (Rafael Abalos)

Grimpow: The Invisible Road
The Grimpow series, Book 1
Rafael Ábalos
Delacorte Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Historical Fiction
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: It was winter in the mountains when the boy Grimpow stumbled across the stranger's body, frozen in the snow. When he and his companion and friend, the thief Durlib, investigate, they find silver coins, jewel-handled daggers, a message with a golden seal, and a small, strange stone that glows when Grimpow picks it up... a stone that lets him read the odd symbols on the man's message, though the boy is illiterate and the message is in code. Even more mysteriously, the stranger's body melts like frost on a spring morning after the discovery, as though bespelled.
He does not yet know it, but by taking the stone and the seal, Grimpow has begun a long and dangerous path, one that winds through long-lost histories of the Holy Land, the halls of the outlawed heretical Templar Knights, the centuries-long quests of alchemists, even the cruel and corrupted machinations of the King of France and the Pope. For that nondescript little pebble is the true Philosopher's Stone, an artifact that can lead a chosen mind along the Invisible Road to the Secret of the Wise and the very keys to creation itself - a stone for which many have died. At stake is nothing more or less than the future of humanity, whether people will rise above the age of superstition and brutal ignorance that grips whole nations, or whether all hope of enlightenment will be snuffed out like a candle.

REVIEW: Early on, it looked like Grimpow had promise, an old-school historical fiction yarn with fantasy elements incorporating alchemy and its pursuit of ultimate knowledge and the Philosopher's Stone (as much a symbol of pure wisdom and understanding as a physical object), weaving in real-world events and figures from early 14th century Europe and the corruption underlying the church and its persecution of the Knights Templar. There was a certain straightforward sense of adventure, or at least the promise of adventure, as the illiterate boy finds himself drawn on a path of learning and enlightenment. But it often drags its heels in details and repetition, not to mention numerous points where it felt like the author was lecturing the audience about the history of France, corruption in Catholicism, the origins and brutal ending of the Templars, and medieval secret societies and symbolism as embodied in alchemy and related pursuits and mystery cults. The story and characters often meander and dither without actively progressing the plot (when they aren't repeating themselves as though the reader hadn't been there with them the whole time and remembers full well such details as who Grimpow used to be before finding the stone, or what fate befell Durlib, or his time in the remote monastery studying with the monks who took him in, and so forth). Every so often, the tale manages to be exciting and even interesting, but by the end it had become far too tedious, the plot too orchestrated by Fate and Destiny. The conclusion was a non-event, though this may be explained by the fact that the book was intended to have a sequel, one which I only learned of when searching online and which was apparently never translated into English... a moot point, as I have no interest in pursuing Grimpow's adventures - or lack thereof - further.

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The Great Texas Dragon Race (Kacy Ritter)

The Great Texas Dragon Race
Kacy Ritter
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: For all thirteen years of her life, Cassidy Drake has loved three things: her family, her home state of Texas, and dragons. She grew up on her parents' sanctuary for the beasts, who are too often misunderstood, hunted, or - even worse - abused and exploited, particularly by the world's energy corporations. Many of the rescues on the Drake ranch were former "workers" for FireCorp, the biggest company and the one with the worst reputation for how they treat dragons, for all that their public relations people sweep it under the rug. Corporate money keeps buying up small ranches and sanctuaries, but her father has held out... only now bills are piling up faster than donations are coming in. When Grandma falls ill, that may be the last financial straw on the sanctuary's back - unless Cassidy can pull off a miracle.
Like her mother before her, Cassidy is a talented rider, tamer, and racer. She has the stats to enter the biggest challenge in the state: the Great Texas Dragon Race. Part speed race, part endurance trial, part scavenger hunt, the Race draws competitors from across the country, with a prize purse big enough to end the Drake ranch's financial problems for years... only, ever since Cassidy's mother died from a venomous dragon's bite, her father's been reluctant to let her take risks, not even for the good of the family and their dragons. Besides, the winners are almost always the corporate sponsored riders, with the best training and the best equipment, not outsiders - and especially not outsiders riding scarred, undersized dragons like her favorite mount Ranga. But Cassidy Drake doesn't see another choice, and she's never backed down from a challenge - not even a challenge that has claimed the lives of far more experienced dragon riders, with far more experienced dragons.

REVIEW: This is far from the first story to riff on the classic "underdog girl and her overlooked horse" formula with fantastic creatures and wild competitions. The alternate Earth it creates, with various sizes and species of wild dragons alongside mundane critters, also isn't a first, and in this case is probably best not poked at too hard for plausibility holes. But The Great Texas Dragon Race does present a decent, high-energy story with a protagonist who isn't flawless, in a world that isn't as morally black and white as she first imagined... and it has dragons, who may be only a step or two removed from "scaly puppy" or "scaly pony" territory (where dragons are just bigger, scalier, and more incendiary pets/companions/mounts), but still make for some nice peril and adventure.
From the start, Cassidy Drake is a bold personality, more at home in the saddle of a dragon than anywhere else. She already dreams of entering the big Race, both because of her inherent competitive nature and because her late mother Aurora was once a victor, and much of Cassidy's young life has been spent trying to live up to Mom's reputation (spurred in part by grief and childhood guilt; she was there when Aurora was struck by a venomous wild drake, but was too young and scared to get help). She has less than a week to convince her father, though, and he's stubbornly overprotective of her. When an executive of FireCorp starts poking around the ranch, she's initially confident that, once again, the Drakes will keep the wolves at bay and protect their many charges... but when her beloved grandmother, the glue that holds their little family together, falls suddenly ill and needs expensive testing and treatment, the girl only grows more determined (aided and abetted by Grandma, who believes in the girl more than she even believes in herself). There's a touch of plot convenience here and there to even get her, a late entrant, into the race to begin with, but once she's there she has to find her own way through and fight her own battles - and fail, more than once. She resists making alliances or friends among other competitors; eventually there can be only one winner, but the early stages at least can go easier with a little help, or at least knowing that not everyone else is actively looking to stick a knife in her back. Plus the FireCorp sponsored riders are clearly working together from the beginning, leaving those without corporate backers at a disadvantage right out of the gate if they can't pull together. Worse, one of the FireCorp riders, a boy named Ash, keeps trying to befriend her - and letting her guard down once almost costs her everything. But there's more to his story than she knows, just as there's more to the other racers and the Race itself than she knows, and one of the many things Cassidy has to learn is to listen now and again. This is a whole different league than the regional races she and Ranga have run, and Cassidy is in over her head for some time before she learns to tread water, let alone swim. Along the way, she has to re-evaluate just what she stands for and why she's competing, and whether victory should be something more than just a prize purse at the end.
More than once, there's a sense of other characters existing to help or hinder the main character specifically (particularly most of the "baddies" in the FireCorp riding group). As mentioned previously, there are also some issues of plausibility if one looks too closely or too critically at the world in general and the race in particular; the often-potentially-deadly nature of the challenges feel like something one would find in a Harry Potter world where wizards with magic are not far away and can potentially bespell an antagonized wild dragon in an emergency (or can at least possibly magick up a cure to critical injuries inflicted along the way) or in a more dystopian place like Panem from The Hunger Games, where the amped-up spectacle and deadly nature of the competition is the point, not in a world that's more or less our own but with dragons. But on the whole the story doesn't slow down enough for too much introspection or examination, and Cassidy's a bold enough personality, undertaking a wild enough adventure, to generally make things work, especially for the target audience.

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Brick Dust and Bones (M. R. Fournet)

Brick Dust and Bones
The Marius Grey series, Book 1
M. R. Fournet
Dreamscape
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Marius Grey is a cemetery boy, part of a long line who maintain the graveyards of New Orleans and protect the ghosts who linger among the mausoleums. For two years, he's also been an orphan - but hopefully not for much longer. He knows of a resurrection spell that can, in theory, bring his mother back from death, which will require many mystic coins to attempt. In addition to his duties and his schooling - at a special school where "fringe" kids like him learn to navigate both the ordinary world and the hidden culture of magic - he has started hunting monsters on the side, collecting bounties for each poltergeist, candy woman, bogeyman, and other creatures he captures in his magical monster hunter book... but they aren't earning him nearly enough, and the window for the spell is rapidly closing. To get a bigger payout, he's going to need to hunt down bigger monsters - but the one he sets his sights on is so dangerous that even experienced, adult hunters rarely survive an encounter. Is this the way to save his mother, or is Marius Grey about to join her in an early grave?

REVIEW: Brick Dust and Bones starts with the boy Marius Gray hiding in a child's closet waiting for a bogeyman to appear, talking to the ghost of his dead mother, in a scene that quickly establishes the basic "rules" of the world, the stakes, and the desperation of the main character. It's a solid start to what becomes a fairly solid story, steeped in New Orleans magic and with chiller overtones.
Orphaned Marius was always an outsider, even among other "fringe" folk, but only grew more isolated after his mother was killed by a demon. Aside from her ghost (who may or may not be his own imagination; he wonders, more than once, if he's just talking to himself), his only friends are a young ghost at his family's graveyard and the mermaid Rhiannon - who is technically a monster, as her kind traditionally feed on humans, but this one has spent more time among people than her own kin and has developed a bond of sorts with the cemetery boy, even if her words and actions often remind Marius (and the reader) that she is not and will never be a human. Marius can be stubborn and reckless, but he generally has a good heart beneath it all and never intentionally hurts people. He's just used to being alone and so completely focused on the slim possibility of rescuing his mother from Hell that he doesn't always think through the consequences of his actions. The story moves fairly well, slowing down now and again to fill out Marius's world, but it never feels dull or repetitive, and even the slower bits are full of sensory details like tastes and smells and textures. The monsters he faces are suitably scary creatures, and the fights have real stakes and tension to keep them interesting. When things reach the climax, Marius has earned his way there, and hasn't just stumbled into it by accident.
There are a few threads and characters who feel underexplored or forgotten by the end, though this is just the first book in a series, so it's possible they were deliberately left dangling. Overall, though, it's a good story with a nice New Orleans flavor to it, establishing a main character and a setting that can easily carry more adventures.

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A Breath of Mischief (MarcyKate Connolly)

A Breath of Mischief
MarcyKate Connolly
Sourcebooks
Fiction, MG? Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: A windling child, the blue-haired girl Aria was raised in a floating castle by the Wind itself. She loves watching the world drift by beneath her, listening to the visiting birds and dragons and other flying beasts, playing with her best friend Gwyn the gryphling, reading books in the castle's great library (for the Wind loves to snatch up books and scrolls and other odds and ends in their travels to bring back to their daughter), and being lulled to sleep every night by the Wind's special, secret lullaby they sing just for her.
One morning, she wakes up to find the castle has drifted to earth, and the Wind is nowhere to be found. Worse, she seems to have lost her magical gifts from the Wind that let her float and drift like a dandelion puff, and the air all around is still and heavy, without so much as a breath of breeze. Aria and Gwyn search, and discover that an alchemist named Worton has the Wind trapped in a great and strange magical machine; he refuses to let her parent go unless the windling brings him three magical artifacts from across the land. She isn't sure she trusts him, but she misses the Wind terribly, and the longer the Wind is away, the more the land itself suffers. Can she solve the riddle and find the items... and, if she does, is she helping free the Wind or enabling something far more terrible?

REVIEW: The cover image looked fun, and the title promised mischief and light adventure. But something about that promise never quite came through, even though A Breath of Mischief has some fun images and ideas.
Aria is an "otherling" chosen by the Wind, an embodiment of the element of moving air. Just what is an "otherling"? The story seems vague on what they are and where they come from, save that they aren't human and don't particularly trust people. I guessed them to be some sort of faerie-like being, but the reader only ever meets a handful, each the adopted "child" of an elemental force who, like her, have been given particular gifts and responsibilities. This thin worldbuilding persists throughout, the sense that ideas, while nice and shiny to look at in the moment, don't always make sense and weren't always thought through and don't necessarily connect in a meaningful or consistent fashion. While many in the target age might not notice, I've read enough middle-grade (and even children's, which this skews toward) fantasy where the worlds felt far more solid to notice that thinness here. In any event, the tale drifts a bit like a seed puff on the breeze before getting to the grounding of the castle and the disappearance of the Wind. Along the way, Aria has her first encounter with another otherling, the waterling boy Bay - the first time she's even considered that other elements might have their own children like herself, and her first real notion that the Wind isn't the only elemental master that's particularly important in the world. She eventually finds her way to a dilapidated keep/mad scientist lair and the alchemist Worton, who tricks her and Gwyn into agreeing to a quest for three suspiciously elemental-based objects. Even for a young and somewhat sheltered protagonist, Aria's choice here is rather hard to swallow, as is her blindness about what Worton is really asking of her - especially when she starts seeing more signs that something's terribly amiss as she and her gryphling best friend pursue the objects. The quest itself is only part of the tale that follows, as Aria and Gwyn deal with several obstacles and a few setbacks, and later a mistake that costs everyone dearly... but this being a tale written for the younger end of the target audience, it's hardly a spoiler that things do work out by the end.
As a read-aloud or read-along with a youngster, A Breath of Mischief might be a decent enough tale. Just don't expect too much from it.

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Ember and the Ice Dragons (Heather Fawcett)

Ember and the Ice Dragons
Heather Fawcett
Storytide
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In a Victorian London that never was, the Stormancer Lionel St. George - a powerful, if not always perfect, Magician at Chesterfield University - is raising a most unusual daughter... a girl who is not a girl at all. Twelve years ago, he was chasing a magical storm through the high Welsh mountains when he found the bodies of two fire dragons, possibly the last of their kind in the wild, which had been slaughtered for their powerful fireglass scales. With them was a newborn baby dragon still clinging to life, and Lionel, unable to leave the thing to die or, worse, slaughter it, used his imperfect magics to wrap a concealment around the foundling, making her appear as a baby human girl (except for the wings; he had to use invisibility to hide those). But now that she's growing up, Ember's innate fire magic is leaking out of her disguise with spontaneous, uncontrolled eruptions of flame. Even in an university full of Magicians, fire has a way of being noticed. Until Lionel can work out how to fix the problem, he has little choice but to send her away - all the way to Antarctica, where his estranged Scientist sister Myra studies the wildlife of the icy land. Ember doesn't want to go, but she knows she has no choice if she wants to avoid being found out.
Whatever she expected to find in Antarctica, she didn't expect to find dragons.
Aunt Myra, it turns out, isn't just studying penguins; she and her fellow scientists are working to save the last surviving wild dragons in the world, magnificent pale creatures known as ice dragons, from the annual Winterglass Hunt. Every year, nobles and bounty hunters take down as many beasts as they can for their invaluable winterglass scales, and every year the population is plummeting, until soon they might go the way of the fire dragons. Ember may not have been able to save her parents, but she's not about to let a pack of ignorant brutes destroy what may be her last living kin - even if it risks exposing her secret to the world.

REVIEW: The fact that this title lingered so long in my "Currently Reading" list should not at all be construed as a reflection on the story itself; it was more about everything else in my life (and the world in general) going wrong. Ember and the Ice Dragons itself is an enjoyable middle-grade fantasy adventure, with dragons and magic (and a little science) and a heroine who could probably carry another book or two if she got the chance.
Having been in human form since her earliest days, Ember has no recollection of what it means to be a real, dragon-shaped dragon, for all that she still is not entirely human: she cannot tell a lie, for one thing, plus there are some times when human psychology just confuses her. Still, she loves her "father" Lionel dearly, and he loves her, which makes it that much harder when she has to go away for both of their safety; the spells he worked to conceal her are in a blurry legal area at the very least, and his position as a university professor is already precarious enough with his other occasional mishaps, not to mention being on the wrong side of university politics more often than not. In Antarctica, she's on her own for the first time - Aunt Myra, though aware of who and what Ember is, is not a motherly type, and isn't quite sure how to deal with the sudden imposition - and also among "peers", or at least human children of her own age. She struggles to relate, finding herself on the wrong end of a pair of bullies (and the wrong end of the first teacher who isn't Lionel she's ever had to deal with; the idea that she's expected to study the same things in the same way as everyone else, to do homework, is irritating and confusing), complicated by her continued worries about more spontaneous combustions. The discovery that there are ice dragons on the continent brings an unexpected thrill of joy; they may not be fire dragons, but they are still dragons. Almost immediately, though, that hope turns to fear and rage when she meets the arrogant young Prince Gideon and his father, both of whom are active proponents of dragon hunting and bristle at how Queen Victoria has limited the dragon hunts and may even eventually side with the Scientists and end the practice altogether. Gideon's reasons for becoming a dragon hunter are a little more complicated than Ember first realizes, though; the friction between power and politics and conservation is not always as clean and easy as Ember first thinks. There are also secrets in the Antarctic wilderness that neither the Scientists nor the hunters don't fully understand, secrets that could endanger everyone. When Ember sets out to sabotage the hunt - with some help from two human friends - she runs straight into those secrets, and almost pays with her life. Still, for all that she stumbles at times, she does learn along the way.
While the plot moves fairly well, there are a few thin patches. The alternate history Fawcett builds feels scattershot and thin if you look too hard, and a few characters felt like they were left halfway through their own stories by the end, with certain elements weirdly forgotten or petering out after much foreshadowing and development. (I suspect that there was a planned sequel at the very least, if not a full series.) Other than that, it's a decent story that has both humor and wonder, not without a few perilous and darker moments, and I enjoyed the main character and, of course, the dragons.

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The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise (Dan Gemeinhart)

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
The Coyote Sunrise series, Book 1
Dan Gemeinhart
Henry Holt and Co.
Fiction, MG General Fiction
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, the twelve-year-old girl Coyote Sunrise had another name. She lived in a house, not a converted yellow school bus lovingly named Yager. She called her father Dad, not Rodeo. And she had a mother and two sisters, and they all loved each other very, very much.
But that was five years ago, before the car accident that destroyed that peaceful home, that love-filled life. Now, she and "Rodeo" are forever on the move, wandering across the country and back again, and Coyote isn't even allowed to talk about the ones they lost, let alone ask to go back to the Washington town they once called home, not even to visit; she can't even call her own father "Dad", for the painful memories it brings. Normally, the girl is okay with her father's "no-go" rules. She loves him, after all, and there's a lot to enjoy about their rootless life. Then a phone call with her grandmother changes everything.
When Coyote learns that the town is planning to tear up the small park near her old home - the place where her mother and sisters and her buried a time capsule, just days before the crash - she becomes desperate to get back before the bulldozers come. She made a promise, after all, a promise to return and dig up that time capsule with her family, and if she's the only one left to do it, then that makes it all the more imperative that she keep that promise. But to Rodeo, the very thought of a return is paralyzing, among the few things to bring out anger in the otherwise easygoing man. He's spent five years running away from his grief and memories, and isn't about to turn around now. It will take all of Coyote's cunning and cleverness to figure out how to get Yager pointed back toward Washington State... that, and the help of some new friends she and Rodeo pick up along the road.

REVIEW: I'm going to start by admitting that the timing might well have an impact on my rating, here. Almost one week ago, I lost my father, though not under circumstances nearly as unexpected or traumatic as a car crash (he was in his mid-90s and had dementia and other health issues). So perhaps I was primed for a book that tackles the complexities of family, trauma, and grief with such a deft hand and interesting characters, one that treats both adults and children as fully realized people capable of having fully realized emotions and pains and hopes and dreams. Whatever the reason, this story struck some deep, resonant chords, with notes of beauty and humor along the way.
It starts with the girl Coyote displaying her larger-than-life personality and confidence as she befriends strangers at a gas station... but, then, strangers are about the only people she meets. Even though she and Rodeo sometimes give rides to people who need a lift (only after they meet Rodeo's approval and answer the three questions he puts to all would-be riders in a satisfactory manner), their rootless life does not lend itself to friends any more than it lends itself to pausing long enough for their grief to catch up with them... or, at least, catch up to Rodeo. Coyote feels that grief regardless of how high the numbers roll on Yager's odometer, and she starts the book feeling lonely enough to scheme to bring a kitten on board the school bus in defiance of Rodeo's no-pet rule. She needs something, anything, to call a companion, and there's something special about the little gray striped kitten from the moment she sets eyes on him, something that (inevitably) wins over Rodeo and everyone else they meet. That act of defiance, that admission that her father's chosen life isn't answering the girl's needs, is the first open crack in the dam the two have built against their shared pain and trauma, a crack that widens when Coyote talks to her grandmother and learns about the impending destruction of the corner park and, with it, the time capsule. In scheming and racing to save that little metal box, she's essentially racing to save her memories of her family, to be allowed to admit they existed, they lived, they loved - all things that Rodeo has designated "no-go" zones. But none of this implies intentional cruelty on her father's part. He's among the most open, trusting, friendly, and loving people she knows, and their relationship is as close as ever, which makes it all the more complicated for Coyote to wrestle with defying him, with admitting openly what he stubbornly refuses to see: that they both need to remember, need to grieve, need to stop running away. Thus, her need to scheme to get him to drive cross-country without him realizing until it's too late just where they're going. In this, she finds unexpected allies in a collection of passengers they pick up: a jazz musician hoping to reunite with a girlfriend, a mother and son escaping a bad situation who are counting on a relative who promises work in another state, and a girl turned out by parents over her orientation not matching their strict standards. Each of these characters is allowed to be rounded and distinct, with their own goals and fears and personalities. In the boy Salvador, Coyote finds the first true friend she's had since leaving home, a true companion and ally, even if they sometimes clash. Lester becomes almost an uncle, an adult to balance out Rodeo's well-meaning yet sometimes misguided intentions, who understands why she needs to do what she's doing even if her father can't cope with it. And in Val, she gets a surrogate big sister. This found family helps give Coyote the courage she needs even as the inevitable confrontation with Rodeo comes closer, though the road trip itself also has its share of adventures and obstacles, leading everyone to places (metaphoric and literal) that they need to go, even if they didn't realize it when they set out. Throughout are multiple moments of wonder and beauty and wild abandon, conversations full of surprisingly complex emotions and truths. The final parts feel slightly stretched, but by then Coyote had earned those moments, and the tumultuous emotions that come with them. It all comes together in a very satisfying way that manages to avoid excessive treacle and trite sentimentality, never once cheapening the characters or their journeys.
For hitting so many strong emotional notes, for feeling so authentic yet so full of pain and wonder and truth, and for generally being the book I needed when I needed it, The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise earns top marks. It would be nice to live in a world as generally good-hearted as the one Coyote lives in...

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