TIGER’S BLOOD

Offering less action than its predecessor, this middle episode in a creative yet gentle series is so calm it feels diluted.

Mr. Hu—a tiger guarding the phoenix egg from evildoers—shared his soul with Tom at the end of Book One, but Tom’s shift towards tigerness is slow. Hu, Tom, and their friends leave San Francisco and head underwater to the supposedly safe dragon kingdom. A mysterious “Nameless One” threatens, but Mistral the dragon and Tom defeat it anticlimactically. One friend’s betrayal while Hu lies in a drugged sleep is predictable; more affecting is Tom’s reluctant agreement to truly take over as the egg’s Guardian. Instead of the quotations from ancient Chinese lore Yep first used to form creatures, here he uses descriptions of (real) underwater life. Visuals are colorful but logistics vague.

The third entry promises a huge battle, with Tom becoming more of a tiger; this one on its own is static.