A. J. Lake's The Coming of Dragons is the newest entry in a bushelful of books designed to fill kids' seemingly insatiable desire for stories about dragons. In most of these books, the dragons are heroic beings, but in Lake's newest, Torment the Dragon is a nasty piece of work. In the first pages of this ripping yarn, the Spearwa, the dragon destroys a sailing vessel and all hands, except two passengers, Edmund, a king's song, and Elspeth, the skipper's daughter. Both are saved by clinging to an chest from the cargo hold, and then by an old, Gandalf-like mentor named Aagard, who takes them into his home when they wash ashore. Edmund and Elspeth are soon discovered to have stunning--and inconvenient--gifts. Edmund is a Ripente, one who can see through others' eyes, and Elspeth becomes the guardian and wielder of a silver sword which comes to her unbidden from the chest. Many scary and sometimes violent adventures follow, asthe two children desperately try to get back home. The Coming of Dragons is a tad bit uneven, with a few patches of clunky writing and some egregious proofreading mistakes, but the whole book is greater than the sum of its parts. Kids should love it, and the ending is such a cliffhanger that Lake should scarcely have been allowed to release the first book before the second one was written. (This is Book One in the Darkest Age series.) Parents should be warned that there is a short scene of torture towards the end of the book that may be too intense for younger children.
Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...
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