An old-time–y fairy tale for dragon lovers; here’s hoping subsequent volumes offer more meat.
A castle maid hides an injured dragon.
When the staff clears out the deceased king’s belongings, blonde, pale-skinned orphan Sophy finds a bag of strange rocks, one of which magically gives Sophy the ability to communicate with the baby dragon that crash-lands in the orchard. But there’s not much time for Sophy to chat with storm dragon Cloudy—the ill-tempered knight Sir Fitzroy despises magical creatures, and he’s on the prowl, looking for the crashed dragon. After the knight nearly catches them (storm magic and billowing royal underpants in the laundry play a role in their getaway distraction), Sophy and Cloudy steal away to safety and find the magic plant that will heal his wing. Soon, he rejoins his dragon family, and Sophy starts to miss him—but not for long. Harrison’s series opener treads familiar territory, the third-person narration liberally dotted with exclamation marks and the dialogue positively festooned with them. The essential conflict—the adults’ dislike of magical creatures ("I've never liked magical animals. How can you trust a creature that breathes fire or sings to the stars?" the queen complains)—feels wholly plot-driven and fails to give all but the most credulous readers genuine stakes to care about. Williams’ illustrations depict the people with uniformly light skin and the dragon as adorable.
An old-time–y fairy tale for dragon lovers; here’s hoping subsequent volumes offer more meat. (Fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7608-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Good, solid fantasy fun.
Nine-year-old Brooklynite Jaxon meets a witch, becomes her apprentice, and protects baby dragons all in one eventful day.
As the story opens, Jaxon and his mom are being evicted. While Mama tries to secure a place to stay, she leaves him with Ma, the woman who raised her. Ma clearly doesn’t want Jaxon around, but it becomes apparent that’s at least partially due to a mysterious package she’s received. Jax soon discovers that Ma’s a witch, his mom used to be Ma’s apprentice (a mantle he takes up), and that Ma’s package contains…baby dragons! The dragons need to be taken to the magical realm, but a transport malfunction strands Ma while Jax is sent back to Brooklyn. Desperate to save Ma, Jax enlists the help of his friend Vikram, whose little sister, Kavita, tags along. Curious—or is it nosy?—Kavita discovers the dragons and does the worst: feeds them. This not only increases their size, but bonds them to her. Thankfully, Trub, Jax’s maternal grandfather, is a magic user and helps Jax find Ma and get the dragons to the magical realm, where (discerning readers won’t be surprised) they discover one dragon is missing….What a breath of fresh air: a chapter-book fantasy with an urban setting, an array of brown-skinned magic wielders, and a lovable black protagonist readers will root for and sympathize with. Geneva B’s black-and-white illustrations depict a cast of color and appear every few pages.
Good, solid fantasy fun. (Fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7045-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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