THE DRAGON WITH A CHOCOLATE HEART

Aventurine is tired of being treated like a baby hatchling.

The young dragon dreams of exploring the world, but her mother wants her safe at home reading books and finding her passion. When Aventurine flies away from the mountain to prove she’s fierce enough to take care of herself, she picks up a tantalizingly sweet scent that leads her to the source of the wonderful smell: chocolate. There’s a human, too, whom Aventurine plans to eat. He gives her a cup of hot melty chocolate, and Aventurine’s life changes with one enchanted sip. The bad news: Aventurine is now a vulnerable 12-year-old human girl. The good news: she’s found her passion—chocolate, of course—and she’s going to apprentice herself to a chocolatier. With the help of Silke, a black girl in men’s clothing, the unstoppable Aventurine, who still sees the world as a dragon does, finds her way to the Chocolate Heart and its proprietor, the golden-skinned Marina, a hot-tempered, uncompromising master chocolatier. As apprentice, Aventurine is launched on a new course, one on which she finds the strength to align her dragon and human selves while making chocolate that just might save the kingdom from some fiery enemies. Aventurine’s human self is apparently white, but the cast of secondary characters is diverse: Marina’s business partner is a black man, and the pink-skinned king has two brown-skinned daughters.

A gloriously fresh story to be read with a steaming cup of chocolate at hand.