Genre: Fantasy

All of Us with Wings

After running away to San Francisco, 17-year-old Xochi stumbles into a new job working for an eclectic group of people that live in Eris Gardens. Eris Gardens is a mansion inhabited by the rock band Lady Frieda and their various friends and lovers. The band members live like a big family. They operate under a creed of free love and polyamory while trying to keep their party lives under control enough to protect twelve-year-old Pallas. Xochi befriends Pallas and moves into Eris Gardens to become her governess.

The story is told mostly through Xochi’s third-person perspective, but many chapters are told through the perspectives of other characters. Some chapters show the perspectives of the precocious Pallas, other eccentric characters in Eris Gardens, figures from Xochi’s past, and even the intelligent neighborhood cat, Peasblossom. The rotating perspectives help round out the story and supply viewpoints that Xochi’s perspective alone couldn’t provide. However, readers may be confused, as the narrative gives little warning before introducing the viewpoints of brand-new characters.

Xochi and Pallas make a pretend potion in the bathtub, which has unintended magical consequences. Two small supernatural beings—dubbed “Waterbabies”—appear.  The mystical “Waterbabies” begin to meddle in Xochi’s life, attacking those who wish her harm and seeking revenge on those who have harmed her in the past. In order to stop them from going out of control, Xochi must face her past and make peace with the life and trauma she left behind.  Meanwhile, she begins a perilous and forbidden romance with Pallas’ 28-year-old father Leviticus. Through its rotating perspectives, All of Us with Wings tells the story of the difficult transition to adulthood for young people who have been abused and forced to grow up too quickly.

Like many seventeen-year-olds, Xochi is not quite sure what she wants, and spends much of the book aimlessly stumbling across San Francisco as she tries to grope with her past. Readers will enjoy the story’s unique magical realism. Characters receive prophetic visions and dreams, read tarot cards, and talk about their inner eyes and auras. In this book, San Francisco oozes magic from every alley, mysterious bookshop, public mural, and street corner.  The book portrays the excitement and mystique of San Francisco’s nightlife and counter-culture, but it also delves into the city’s dark side. Some scenes take place in bars, burlesque clubs, and even a heroin den.

Xochi’s difficult past centers around her mother, Gina, who abandoned her, and her mother’s boyfriend, Evan, who sexually abused her. The Waterbabies exact their revenge on these people psychologically—by replaying the memories of the harm they have done—and physically. Despite the fact that the Waterbabies have taken Xochi’s past into their own hands, it’s still up to her to come to terms with all that has happened to her.

One of the most puzzling pieces of this book is Xochi’s relationship with Leviticus, her 28-year-old employer. Both she and Leviticus know that their relationship is taboo. Leviticus has “a strict policy” about young women, “because the older person has more experience and more power.” Older men have taken advantage of Xochi in the past, and characters frequently make reference to her age, calling her “jailbait” even though they all seem to agree that she is “mature for her age.” However, the book ends with Leviticus and Xochi on amicable terms, and open to future romance, while skirting around the questions that readers may have about whether or not the relationship is appropriate.

All of Us with Wings is for mature readers. It includes a lot of graphic content and situations that are difficult to talk about. Readers will appreciate the portrayal of a young person growing up and entering the world, but the ending may leave them confused.

Sexual Content

  • Pallas spies on her mother, Io, and sees that “embedded in the small of Io’s back was a set of small silver hooks, much like the fasteners on Pallas’s own Victorian boots. A black ribbon crisscrossed her mother’s bird-boned spine, connecting the hooks like laces on an invisible corset.” She realizes that the piercings must be sexual and remembers seeing “a book of photographs of outlandish piercings and tattoos she wasn’t supposed to look at. Io’s disturbing new hooks and ribbons weren’t attached to some unimaginably painful private place, but like the piercings in the book, they were definitely sexual—frightening, powerful and secret.” Seeing this leaves Pallas shaken and upset.
  • Later at a party, Xochi sees “a man, naked and heavily tattooed, hung above a platform by thick metal hooks threaded through the skin of his chest. She expected to see blood dripping from the wounds in the skin above his pierced nipples, but there was nothing. This was less a crucifixion than a display of an unusual piercing done some other strange night and long since healed.”
  • Leviticus says he has a personal rule that he won’t have sex with “anyone who’s too high to operate heavy machinery.”
  • While kissing a strange man, Xochi “felt herself respond to his hands on her hips, the hardness under his jeans, unwanted but also hot.” After Xochi’s encounter with this man, a band member tells her that the man is “a good kisser, and his dick is huge. You must have noticed—he’s like zero to boner in three seconds.”
  • Xochi wonders if she has “some sort of fetish for older men.”
  • Xochi kisses Bubbles, a 24-year-old woman. “It was a long kiss, a little world. Bubbles’ tongue produced a ticklish little sting. In accord, they stopped and laughed.”
  • Pallas’ mother, Io, explains polyamory to Pallas. “Some people want to be part of a pair. They feel best when they give their love to one other person, like a husband or wife. Some people want to be singular, but love many people in lots of different ways. Some people don’t want a lover at all and like being alone. There’s no one right way to do love.”
  • The Waterbabies replay the memory of Evan’s abuse of Xochi until Evan realizes that she never consented to sex. Evan had “pulled her up. Brushed leaves from her hair. Held her, tried to comfort her. Then he kissed her. Her eyes flew open, all pupil. She was out of her mind, but her body knew what to do. When she kissed him back, she was all fire. His hands were in her hair, under her skirt, she was pulling him into her, nails digging through his T-shirt, her leg wrapped around his hip. It was fast and fierce. At the time, he thought she came. But now, watching, he wasn’t so sure . . . Afterward, alone in his bed, he’d told himself it was mutual. A freak moment born of grief. But the truth was, he’d been after this for a year, at least. After her. There’d been an opening, and he’d taken it . . . And she hadn’t wanted it. He could see that, too. After that, he only came to her when he was wasted, but he found a way to do it sober soon enough, never thinking of it when she wasn’t there, never planning in advance, living in the moments of sweet relief and forgetting them when they were done. Now he could see his mistake, taking silence for acceptance, despair for consent.”
  • In another supernaturally-induced flashback, Evan remembers a scene with Xochi’s mother, Gina. “Gina herself was on the floor. He stood over her, a monster. He was twice her size, but she met his eyes, defiant, blood smeared on her thighs because he’d been too rough. Too rough after her female troubles, too rough too many times. There were bruises on her arms, a black handprint spanning her bicep.”
  • Xochi remembers a summer when she “touched herself at night in bed, in the morning in the shower, in the deepest part of the swimming hole with the sun on her back and her face in the water, the pleasure proof she was perfect, needed no one.”
  • In a chapter narrated by Leviticus, he looks at Xochi and notices, “her legs were long, her movements coltish—just the sort of innocent-sexy detail that made him feel like a pervert straight out of ” (Lolita is a famous book about a man who abuses a young girl.)
  • Evan remembers how Xochi’s mother, Gina, had an IUD that she kept secret until it got infected. “If it hadn’t been for the trouble with Gina’s IUD, the awful infection, he would have always believed he was damaged goods when she never got pregnant.”
  • Leviticus thinks, “You could tell everything about a woman from kissing her – how she’d have sex, how she’d love. How it would end. Men weren’t like this. All you could tell from kissing a guy was how he gave head.”
  • Peasblossom, the cat, recalls living with a gay couple. One of them say that he thinks the cat “likes it when we fuck.”
  • Xochi walks through a neighborhood where, “Neon signs advertised Big Al’s Playboy Club, The Garden of Eden, and The Lusty Lady, where a topless cartoon redhead danced, the words ‘Live Nude Girls’ blinking on and off below her high heeled shoes.”
  • Xochi stops outside a strip club and talks to a dancer who works there. The dancer says, “They’ll hire you. You’re gonna rake it in.” Xochi clarifies that she’s not looking for a job, but the redhead continues to talk strategy, saying, “Focus on the old guys, play the nice girl and you’ll hardly have to do a thing.”
  • Xochi goes into the strip club, and watches dancers on the stage. By the end of a song, a dancer is “naked except for her thigh-high boots.” Xochi also sees lap dances happening all around her. She wonders, “What happened if the men ejaculated?” She also wonders if the dancers have to perform lap dances for creepy customers. “She felt—what? Scared, maybe. Definitely embarrassed. It was just so weird seeing this private thing done in public. So weird it was actually someone’s job. But the dancers were gorgeous. Watching them was like an endless Christmas morning, unwrapping gift after shiny gift.”
  • Xochi makes out with Leviticus. “They kissed and kissed, her lips raw from the stubble on his face, her hands tracing the shape of his arms, his back, his chest, pulling his shirt over his head. Her body was alive with purpose. His hands were on her back, her breasts.”
  • Xochi remembers her grandmother saying that a good rule for sex was, “If you can’t talk about it, don’t do it.” She thinks, “Maybe it was a good rule for drugs, too.”
  • Xochi is alone with an exotic dancer named Justine who takes her dress off to show Xochi a full-body tattoo of a tree. “Xochi leaned closer, her mouth an inch above Justine’s pale shoulder. Her lips rested there, and then her tongue took up the tracing, her piercing sparking along the tattooed branches. When she reached the apple, she didn’t think; her teeth just sank into the bright-red center of the forbidden fruit.” The next thing the reader sees is that “Xochi and Justine returned to the party, lips swollen, makeup smudged, hands entwined.”
  • When asked how far she went with Justine, Xochi says, “We fooled around. . . I don’t know what it’s called. When you do it to a guy, it’s a hand job.”
  • While Xochi is strung out on heroin with two near-strangers, Justine and Duncan, they “made a game of it. Justine undid a button on Xochi’s jacket. Duncan unbuttoned Xochi’s shorts. Justine undid another button. Duncan fumbled with her bra.” They are interrupted before they can go any further.
  • In a dream, Gina sees “an entire classroom of kindergarten Ginas, one girl for every day that year’s foster father drove her to school the long way.” The insinuation is that her foster father abused her.
  • A character recalls school bullies telling her, “Eww, gross, your dad is gay—he’s going to give you AIDS in your Cheerios.”
  • A character jokes that Peasblossom, the cat, “may be fixed, but he still tomcats around.”
  • At the climax of the story, Xochi says the word “rape” out loud, allowing herself to acknowledge what happened to her.

Violence

  • While walking alone at night, a strange man follows Xochi. The man says, “Bitch, I’m talking to you. Don’t make me chase you.” Xochi escapes without the incident escalating further, but it leaves her shaken.
  • When Evan is accosted by the Waterbabies, they drag him into a lake. “Something was touching his feet, pulling him down. He clutched at his ankles and found two pairs of miniature hands. He clawed and thrashed his limbs, but every movement seemed to add weight to his body, quickening his descent to the bottom of the impossible lake.” Once he reaches the bottom, he finds himself supernaturally able to breathe as the Waterbabies confront him and replay his memories for him. Later, Xochi hears that he was found dead in the lake.
  • The residents of Eris Gardens teach Pallas aikido for self-defense. Pallas says it’s “because I’m turning thirteen soon and becoming a woman.”
  • During self-defense training, Xochi goes into a trance while she spars with an Eris Gardens resident. When she awakes, the resident “was on his knees at her feet, doubled over in pain.” He says, “Just a flesh wound. Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Xochi is never told exactly what she did, but is confused at why she lost control. “She’d never hit anyone in her life . . . not when a girl pushed her down in middle school, or when a gang of boys chased her with a Screw magazine and forced her to look at the centerfold.”
  • The Waterbabies and Leviticus break into a drug den to rescue Xochi. The Waterbabies blow up the fish tanks, which explode. The shrapnel hits one man who “swore, clutching his crotch. His hands turned red. He ran to the bathroom, blood spilling down the front of his designer jeans.” The Waterbabies then attack Leviticus, thinking he means harm. One “decked and straddled Leviticus, hands wrapped around his pretty neck.” Leviticus is uninjured.
  • In a dream, the Waterbabies visit Gina, but another figure in the dream points a gun at them and says, “Get out or I’ll blow your heads off.”
  • Gina recalls how she “fought with most of her boyfriends. Sometimes the conflicts got physical, but they seemed more like battles than abuse.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Drugs and alcohol feature heavily in the plot. Xochi drinks and smokes cigarettes frequently, both out of pressure from the people around her and out of her own volition.
  • The residents of Eris Gardens “had a rule about never smoking in front of” Pallas, “but most of them smoked marijuana or cigarettes behind her back.” This quote is from a chapter narrated by Pallas, implying that the adults’ habits aren’t as well-hidden as they think.
  • Xochi spent much of her childhood on a pot farm and “had inhaled enough secondhand marijuana to last a lifetime. The few times she’d consciously imbibed, the plant had not been her friend.”
  • At a party, Xochi smokes a hookah with “hash and a little tobacco.” Someone shows her how to inhale the smoke without coughing. “She was halfway through her inhale when the smoke changed direction, exploding out of Xochi’s lungs in a fit of rasping coughs.” She describes the buzz she gets as “different from weed, but related. With the familiar dissolving of limbs came an added electricity, a psychedelic edge. The first wave of high hit gently enough, but it kept on coming.” Later, the hash makes her anxious, and she goes on a walk to calm down.
  • Pallas’ parents host parties at the house where Pallas wanders around unsupervised. Pallas sees someone with “a silver vial and a tiny spoon. She’d be kicked out if anyone from the house saw. Hard drugs weren’t allowed, but people did them anyway.”
  • When Pallas is upset, Xochi finds her with a lit clove cigarette, “barely smoked.” Pallas later says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t enjoy it.”
  • A character takes painkillers for a “monster hangover.” The type of painkillers aren’t specified.
  • Leviticus takes Xochi to a bar where the bartender gives Xochi a whiskey “compliments of the house.” Leviticus tells Xochi, “You don’t have to drink it. The bartender says you look like a whiskey girl. He thought about carding you, but he changed his mind. Pretty girls are good for business.” Xochi drinks the whiskey.
  • Leviticus tells Xochi, “I see you’re no stranger to the bottle.” She tells him, “I grew up with a bunch of guys. I learned to keep up.”
  • Xochi sees a band member “leaning over a mirror, chopping up some white powder with a razor blade. He snorted it and stood up.” He offers her a line, but she doesn’t accept. After the band member leaves, Xochi approaches the mirror and sees that the band member was snorting “white powder, speed or cocaine.” She “aimed the straw and sniffed, gagging at the chemical reek. The effect was instant, a bitter blast of awareness. Xochi’s sinuses burned and her eyes felt huge in her head.” She isn’t shown doing cocaine again.
  • Xochi remembers her mother doing cocaine with an old friend. “They’d lock themselves in the bathroom and come out pin eyed and sniffing.”
  • A character wakes up and does “two bong hits—breakfast of champions.” He eats no actual food for breakfast.
  • Evan describes his supernatural experience with the Waterbabies as being akin to an “acid-trip.”
  • Xochi goes to a party where “a keg was the only option for something to drink.” She drinks beer the whole night.
  • Later, when she is very drunk, she goes to a back room with Justine and Duncan, two people she barely knows. “Justine’s arm was clamped above the elbow by a rubber tube. She gave Xochi a long look and pierced the tender crease of her arm with the needle.” Later Xochi reflects on the experience and remembers that, “Justine hadn’t called it by name. Xochi hadn’t asked. She’d known, of course, but it was easier to pretend she didn’t.”
  • In the heroin den, a few young girls are strung out on drugs, half-conscious on the bed. They are “not much older than Pallas.” They exist in the background, and nobody describes them in detail.
  • Gina remembers that when she gave birth to Xochi, she was “hazy from the drugs Gina told them she didn’t want.”
  • A character remembers “the way heroin tasted, coming up from the blood instead of in from the tongue. The tracks on his arm whispered the things they remembered about rest and quiet and peace. That was the real siren song, his own blood’s memory.” It’s implied that he’s craving heroin, but he resists relapse.
  • In a memory, a character dying of AIDS is on morphine. He says he never did morphine “back in the day. I just like speed. It kept me skinny.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: fuck, shit, bitch, hell, ass, and damn.
  • A man on the street calls Xochi a “psych ward cunt.”
  • A clerk calls Xochi an “underage hoe.”
  • Gina remembers how everyone in her hometown thought she was a “trailer-trash whore.”
  • Leviticus mentally calls himself, “Faggot. Fuckup. Junkie. Whore. Failure. Pussy. Sellout. Fraud.”

Supernatural

  • The “Waterbabies” appear both in real life and in people’s dreams. According to an expert on the supernatural, they are “fey as fuck, but corporeal. Not a dream.”
  • A band called “Dead Girls” is known for singing “in a made-up language,” and they “never eat. They want people to think they’re, like, vampires or Parisian or something.”
  • When Pallas is upset, Xochi cheers her up by making a pretend potion, “with flower petals and crushed-up leaves and perfume and stuff.” She says, “Your family thinks they’re witches, right? But it’s us. We’re the witches.” Xochi puts aloe into the potion and calls it “Goblin blood.” Pallas puts in candies and calls them “Teeth of murdered toddler.” They think it’s just for fun, but they end up summoning real supernatural beings into the world.
  • At the end of their play-ritual, Xochi chants, “Fates! Fates and Furies! Open, open, open up the door!” The narration tells how, “Their feet pounded in a primal rhythm. They were spirit girls, priestesses, fiends.”
  • Occasionally, the book references tarot cards. In one scene, Xochi bumps into a stack of tarot cards and scatters them. They all fall face down except for a few. A resident of Eris Gardens tells Xochi that she’ll “know soon enough” what they mean.
  • A character says the Waterbabies are similar to “Tlaloques,” or “Chaneques,” which are names of Aztec and Mexican gods.
  • One of the band members, Kylen, has psychic abilities which are never fully explained. In a chapter from his perspective, Kylen looks into Xochi’s mind. He “focused his inner eye and focused himself to relax. It was always like this, a psychedelic trip down some stranger’s yellow brick road. There was usually light and color, and sometimes a scent.”
  • Kylen recalls how when Pallas started to venture out on her own, he drew a boundary line on a map of the neighborhood. He “traced the line slowly with a finger, charging the boundary with protection. On the dark moon, he walked the boundary at midnight, spitting on every street corner and dropping a few crumbs of snake root and angelica.”
  • Someone throws I Ching coins and tells Peasblossom’s fortune from “her dog-eared Book of Changes.” Peasblossom notes that the fortune was “remarkably apt.” (I Ching is the name of a popular divination text used by occultists.)
  • Someone tells Leviticus that recent events in his life were caused by “your Saturn return, right on schedule. Unfinished business coming back to haunt you.”
  • When Pallas gets her period, her mother asks, “You wouldn’t want . . . a moon ritual, would you? Some girls do them.” Pallas declines and says, “I’ve never been a very good witch.” Nobody ever revisits the idea of a “moon ritual,” or explains what it is.
  • A character recalls how she always laughs at “that part in The Exorcist when the priests did their ‘power of Christ compels you’ routine.”
  • Someone who can see auras watches Xochi and sees that “the light shooting from her left hand flickered, glowing pomegranate red.”

Spiritual Content

  • At a party, Xochi imagines that, “Whatever heaven” a dead family member was in, “it must be a lot like the swaying chaos in the ballroom below.”
  • Xochi gets her tongue pierced at a shop called “Pagan Piercing.”
  • The owner of “Pagan Piercing” tells Xochi about the process of trepanation, where ancient people drilled holes in their skulls. He says, “If you’re a shaman, it’s your job to communicate with the divine. Why not open the door and invite her in?”
  • Xochi says, “My grandma used to tell me that a lot of cultures see the salmon as sacred. When you eat them, you’re absorbing parts of the collective soul.” She also says that owls are “known to carry the souls of the dead.”
  • A character says, “One time, we found my mom down in the laundry room chanting ‘God hates me’ while she sorted a massive pile of tube socks.”
  • A musician says, “When I drum, I need my chakras connected to the earth, not the freaking ether.”
  • A restaurant has paintings of the Virgin Mary on the walls.
  • Leviticus says, “They say the veil thins on Solstice and Equinox,” referring to the veil between the living and the dead.
  • Xochi reads a book of poetry and notices the lines, “Everything was soulful/and all souls were one.”
  • In conversation with Leviticus, Xochi says, “I’ve been curious about paganism, for one thing. I was surprised to find out most of you are atheists. Io said something about your beliefs not being literal, like you don’t believe in actual gods and goddesses. That it’s more about celebrating cycles in nature, something like that. So maybe ‘atheist’ isn’t the right word?” Leviticus replies, “I think of myself as more agnostic. Like, there could be some sort of deity, but probably not. Like, the goddess is in everything. Everything is inherently divine.”
  • Xochi asks Leviticus about a tattoo on his arm that says “24:20.” He tells her it’s a Bible verse from the book of Leviticus.
  • Someone tells Xochi that, “In the Bible, snakes are about temptation and evil. But way before the Bible, they were symbols of wisdom and healing.”

by Caroline Galdi

The Christmasaurus

Once upon a time—long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth—an egg rolled away from its mother and landed in the ocean, where it froze solid and stayed peacefully for thousands of years. Then, one day Santa and his elves discover the frozen egg, and Santa sits on it to see if it will hatch. But he would’ve never guessed what’s inside. . . . a dinosaur!

Meanwhile, a young boy named William Trundle has only ever wished for one thing for Christmas: a dinosaur! So, when Santa accidentally gives William the real Christmasaurus instead of a stuffed replica, it’s the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! That is until Hunter, an evil man known, decides a dinosaur will be the perfect addition to his collection.

The story draws readers into the text by using large text for some of the sillier words, such as “big,” “astronomically,” “intergalactically,” and “outer spacey-wacey big!” The black and white illustrations have wonderful details and show the characters’ emotions. Although younger readers may be interested in the topic, the difficult vocabulary and long, descriptive passages may be hard for some readers to tackle.

The Christmasaurus tackles themes of loneliness, friendship, and seeing things from another person’s perspective. Both the Christmasaurus and William are lonely because they are different from others. However, unlike the Christmasaurus, William is the target of bullying. Through William’s experiences, the story shows how words are “the most powerful weapon of all.” Brenda uses nasty words that “infected the whole school,” making everyone avoid William. Soon William feels lonely and different. “Brenda had planted those awful words like rotten seeds in William’s brain, and they were beginning to grow into rotten thoughts.” However, in the end, William and Brenda both learn valuable lessons about kindness.

Despite William’s difficulties, William remains kind and his true desire is that his father finds happiness. The heartwarming story brings Santa’s magical world to life. However, The Christmasaurus is never predictable and has several surprising plot twists. In the end, The Christmasaurus is a sparkly story that teaches the importance of putting others first.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In the past, a meteorite killed all of the dinosaurs. The rocks “smashed straight down like red-hot thunderbolts that exploded into thousands of fireballs as they hit the earth! Panic and chaos consumed the jungle.” The Momosaurus and Dadlodocus tried to save their egg, but it “rolled into the stampede, unharmed.” The egg eventually hatches.
  • William accidentally wheels over Brenda’s foot. “She jumped backward in pain, sending her tray of barely edible sludge flying up into the air. . .” Brenda’s food ends up in her hair. Then, “she pulled back her hand and launched the plate of green slop into William’s face at point-blank range. It hit him with such a wallop that it sent his wheelchair whizzing backward across the cafeteria, through the emergency exit, and out into the parking lot.”
  • Brenda bullies William and throws things at him. “She’d use her skill to hurl sticks like javelins from the far side of the playground straight into the spokes of William’s wheels. They’d jam the wheels so suddenly that his wheelchair would stop. . . but William wouldn’t.”
  • When the teacher leaves the room, “a shiny black stapler flew across the classroom, straight at William’s head. William tried to block it with his notebook, but the force of the throw was so strong that the book smacked him straight in the face, and the stapler stapled it to his forehead.”
  • While at the grocery store, someone throws “a tub of double-thick, extra-creamy whipped cream” at William. “The flying wave of dairy hit him with such force that it sent his wheelchair whooshing backward, slipping and sliding on the cream-covered floor of the cereal aisle, until he smashed into the shelves . . .” The sprinklers go off “transforming the supermarket into the world’s largest bowl of cereal.”
  • The Hunter is a villain that hunts animals. “He liked to hunt really ridiculously rare animals. . . He had the ears of a pandaroo, the gills of a horse-shark, the tail of a snailwhale. . .”
  • The Hunter wants to kill the Christmasaurus. “BANG! A bullet suddenly whizzed past, inches away from William and the Christmasaurus. It smashed the streetlight behind them, sending shards of glass showering onto the street below.” Both William and the Christmasaurus are able to run away.
  • Santa tells a story about a boy named Huxley, who takes a hunting knife and “began to hack at the reindeer’s antlers! The deer launched high into the air inside the stables, smashing through the roof!” The deer takes off, dragging the boy behind him. “The young boy was so scared as he clung to the dangling reins in the sky that, in his panic, he began to wish the deer couldn’t fly.” The boy takes a piece of the reindeer’s antlers.
  • The villain sets a trap. When William goes down this, he is trapped in a net. “He stopped fighting for a moment as he swung helplessly and took a glance around. . . Santa was lying in a large heap on the floor below him with his hands tied tightly behind his back so that he couldn’t move.” William’s father was also “tied up with thick rope in the corner of the room. . .”
  • William’s father, Mr. Trundle, tries to stop the Hunter from killing the Christmasaurus. “Bang! The gunshot rang out, deafening loud as it tore through the street.” Mr. Trundle is alright, but The Hunter shot the Christmasaurus. “There was only a shadowy heap, lying very still in the distance where the dinosaur had been.” The dinosaur is not injured.
  • The Christmasaurus ate the Hunter and “there was nothing left of that beastly evil man.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The story uses some name calling. For example, “Most bullies are stupid, jealous jellybrains.”
  • Santa calls someone a “repulsive, evil, maliciously rotten skinbag.”
  • When the Christmasaurus charged the Hunter, he says, “What the devil?”
  • The villain tells William, “Now, listen to me, you stupid, puny little child. I’m going to speak to you slowly so that your undersized brain can understand me. . .”
    Supernatural
  • Santa’s reindeer can fly because “millions of children believe that Santa’s reindeer can fly. They believe beyond any shadow of a doubt, and belief is the most powerful magic there is.”
  • Santa can learn things about anyone. Santa holds the person’s letter and “his sky-colored eyes closed and rolled back in his head, and after a few seconds, he knew everything there was to know about William Trundle.”
  • Santa can make magical toys. “He once made a rocking horse. . . which he enchanted so it came to life every Thursday night.” Another time he made a prince a “racing car so that it got smaller and smaller each time the young prince misbehaved!”
  • Santa is able to enter through a chimney by making everything big. “It was almost as if the entire world grew very large all of a sudden. . .”
  • The Christmasaurus is able to fly because William believes he can.
  • When the Christmasaurus gets to the North Pole, he disappears. William “put the candy cane in his mouth and bit off a chunk. POP! As he bit down, the most spectacularly magical thing happened. He didn’t disappear, as the Christmasaurus had. Quite the opposite, in fact: everything else appeared.”
  • Santa’s tears are the only thing strong enough to banish a person from the North Pole.

Spiritual Content

  • None

InvestiGators #1

Alligators Mango and Brash, secret agents for the Special Undercover Investigator Team, have been called into action. It’s up to them to find out what happened to the famous chief, Gustavo Mustachio. The cupcake master disappeared right before his new recipe was revealed! Before the alligators get far in their investigation, an explosion rocks a group of scientists who were about to reveal a new invention. In order to find out if the two events are connected, Mango and Brash rush to the scene. As they dig deeper into the mystery, more questions continue to pop up. Will the two investigators be able to solve the mystery? Can they outsmart the villain?

Readers will laugh their way through InvestiGators, a graphic novel with bright, colorful illustrations. The story’s fast pace takes readers on a winding path through the absurd. Many events are over-the-top, unbelievable, and silly. Mango and Brash often get distracted from their goal of solving Gustavo Mustachio’s disappearance, and they are able to solve several mysteries. However, the story does leave one plot thread unanswered, which will have readers reaching for the next book in the series, InvestiGators Take the Plunge.

The InvestiGators world has alligators, sharks, and other animals working side by side with humans. The world is not only silly, but it makes any absurd thing seem possible. The wordplay, puns, and potty jokes will have readers laughing out loud. The plot is outrageous and has many side stories thrown in. The interesting characters, jokes, and mystery will have readers flipping the pages until the end. The humor in InvestiGators is much like that of Dog Man and Captain Underpants.

Even though the graphic novel will entertain, the winding, wild plot is confusing and at times a little too crazy. In addition, ethnic stereotypes are used for comic effect. Several professions are also stereotyped in a negative way. The stereotypes may cause a giggle in a graphic novel; however, the jokes could be considered offensive. Another flaw of the story is the potty humor. Even though the potty humor is mild, some parents may object to jokes about poop. Lastly, some of the characters talk in slang. For example, when a man apologizes, a scientist says, “S’all right bruh!”

Middle-grade readers will enjoy the silly story; however, parents may want to bypass this book for a story that doesn’t border on the offensive. If you’re looking for a humorous, animal graphic novel, there are a lot of great ones to choose from including the Two Dogs in a Trench Coat series by Julie Falatk, Mac B. Kid Spy series by Mac Barnett, and Klawde by Johnny Marciano & Emily Chenoweth.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Someone kidnaps the baker and forces him to bake.
  • Someone blows up a cake and scientists go flying.
  • A helicopter attacks a man. Someone shoots an arrow, hitting the helicopter causing it to fly away. The man calls the helicopter a “foul beast.”
  • While on a case, an investigator falls into a “vat of radioactive cracker dough…I became one with the dough. Machines rolled me out and baked me into individual saltines…I combined with all of the other me crackers and burst through that vacuum seal, forevermore to be known as Crackerdile.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When the baker makes a crumbly cook, his captor yells, “You’re no baker! You’re a fool!”
  • A cameraman calls a group of scientists eggheads.
  • One of the investigators yells, “Dang it man, lives could depend on this!”
  • One of the investigators writes a text using poop emojis.

Supernatural

  • When reporters come to town in a helicopter, “the local mystic cursed their flying contraption with rabies.”
  • A helicopter bites a doctor. A man tells him, “That machine’s curse is coursing through your veins. And that’s bad news. Now, whenever there is news, you will be forced to transform into a news copter to report on it.” Later in the story, the man turns into a helicopter.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Long Way Down

Somebody shot and killed Will’s brother Shawn, and Will thinks he knows who did it. The morning after Shawn’s death, Will picks up his brother’s gun and gets in the elevator of the apartment building with his heart set on revenge. That’s when things get weird.

Sixty seconds. That’s how long it takes Will to reach the bottom and exit the elevator, but in those sixty seconds Jason Reynolds crafts a story where Will confronts nasty truths about the events that killed not only his brother but his other relatives and friends over the years. Will faces literal ghosts in the elevator that he never thought he’d have to confront. In those sixty seconds, Will must shape the course of his life.

Although Long Way Down takes place over a course of a minute, the story is packed with twists and turns. Early on, Will learns that the other people who entered the elevator are ghosts come to warn him. Each ghost is someone from Will’s past, and through discussion and memories, Will forms new understandings about the violent, revenge-hungry world that has shaped him and his ideas of justice.

The ending is ambiguous and the reader does not find out if Will follows through on his revenge plot. It is clear from the ghosts’ stories and Will’s code of justice that if he takes vengeance, he’ll end up dead like the ghosts. It could be insinuated that they are asking Will if he’s ready to join their ranks by making the same mistakes. Will learns that violence is cyclical and feeds itself. Long Way Down has a heavy message but shows that Will has the power to choose a different path. Even though he and his family have been wronged, the themes within the story make it clear that revenge is never the way out. And, most importantly, Will is the only person in charge of his own destiny. The ghosts give him the tools to determine his fate, but only he makes his own destiny.

Will’s story is told free-verse which highlights the speed at which Will learns from the ghosts and the speed of the descending elevator. Long Way Down packs a punch because it’s short and moves quickly. In this way, the message never leaves center stage, but it’s also never beaten like a dead horse.

Long Way Down is one of Reynolds’ more serious stories, and the plot works well with the somber tone. It’s a hard-hitting tale that demands that each person evaluates the meaning of justice and the consequences of their actions. Some of the events described are dark and may upset younger readers, but these scenes all highlight the main themes. Long Way Down is an excellent story that presents the power of choice and compassion in the lives of everyone, including the people we never get the chance to meet. Fans of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol will appreciate the similarities that appear in Long Way Down. While Reynolds doesn’t mold his story around the Christmas season, both stories show how one event can drastically change a person’s life.  Readers can also find Long Way Down in graphic novel format.

Sexual Content

  • Will and Shawn’s mom prayed that Shawn “wouldn’t get Leticia pregnant.”
  • Shawn gives Will some of his cologne and said that “[Will’s] first girlfriend—/ would like it.”
  • A girl enters the elevator, and Will describes her as “Fine as heaven… [Will] was/ walking [his] eyes/ up her legs,/ the ruffle and fold/ of her flower/ dress, her/ arms, her/ neck, her/ cheek, her/ hair.”
  • Will doesn’t want to flirt with the girl in the elevator because “it’s hard to think about/ kissing and killing/ at the same time.”
  • The girl knows Will’s name. Will thinks, “if a girl says she knows you/ but ain’t never met her/ then she’s been/ watching you./ Clockin’ you./ Checkin/ you.” He continues to “load up [his] flirts.”
  • The mystery girl’s name is Dani; she and Will were childhood friends. Dani says to Will, “You remember, on this day,/ I kissed you?”

Violence

  • Will’s brother Shawn “was shot/ and killed.” Will has flashes where he describes Shawn’s death. Once, Will narrates, “And then there were shots./ Everybody /ran, /ducked, /hid, / tucked/ themselves tight . . . the buzz of a bullet,/ ain’t meet us.”
  • Will lists off “The Rules” for when someone is killed in their neighborhood. The third rule is “If someone you love/ gets killed,/ find the person/ who killed/ them and/ kill them.”
  • Shawn’s side of the bedroom is all neat and clean except for one drawer that “was jacked up on purpose to keep [Will] and Mom out/ and Shawn’s gun in.”
  • Will thinks that Shawn’s so-called friend, Carlson Riggs, shot Shawn. Will has a few theories for why, including that Carlson moved and joined a gang called Dark Suns. Will thinks Carlson shot Shawn because Shawn crossed into their turf “as the corner store/ that sells that special soap/ my mother sent Shawn/ out to get for her the/ day before yesterday.”
  • Will plans to kill Carlson with Shawn’s gun. Will would “pull my/ shirt over my mouth and nose/ and do it.”
  • While playing in the park, Dani was shot and killed by unnamed gunmen. “Gunshots,/ she said . . . Dani said her body burned/ and all she wanted to do was/ jump outside of herself,/ swing to somewhere else.”
  • Will saw Dani die. “Her eyes wide, the brightness/ dimming. Her mouth, open./ Bubble gum/ and blood.”
  • Another ghost enters the elevator and accosts Will. “Two large hands . . . snatched fistfuls of my shirt,/ yoking me by the neck,/ holding me there until/ the elevator door closed.”
  • Uncle Mark videotaped everything he could, including, “gang fights,/ block parties.”
  • In order to take Uncle Mark’s drug-dealing corner, a guy killed him. Will says, “Unfortunately,/ [Uncle Mark] never shot nothing/ ever again./ But my father did.”
  • Will narrates, “Shawn always said/ our dad was killed/ for killing the man/ who killed our uncle./ Said he was at a pay/ phone, probably talking/ to Mom, when a guy/ walked up on him,/ put pistol to head . . . But that was the end/ of that story.”
  • Will’s dad tells Will about how he killed Uncle Mark’s killer. Will’s dad says, “Hood over my head./ Gun from my waist/ and by the time he saw me/ I was already squeezing.” Later Will’s dad discovered that he killed the wrong guy.
  • Will’s dad takes Will’s gun and puts it up to Will’s head. “Pop stood over me,/ the gun pressed against/ the side of my face.” Will freaks out and Pop backs up, giving the gun back to Will.
  • A ghost named Frick enters the elevator. Buck says, “This is the man/ who murdered me.”
  • Frick “shot [Buck]/ twice/ in the stomach,/ in the street.”  Frick was only supposed to rob Buck, but Buck “swings at [Frick]… I got scared./ So I pulled/ the trigger.”
  • To be a Dark Sun, one must have “a cigarette burn under the right eye” and rob, beat, or kill someone.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Buck smokes a cigarette in the elevator. Buck offers one to Dani, who takes “one/ from the box.”
  • Uncle Mark is seen in family photos with a “cigarette tucked/ behind ear.” He also smokes in the elevator.
  • Will says of smoking, “I don’t smoke./ Shit is gross.”
  • Uncle Mark lost his camera. To get another, he decided “to sell [drugs] for one day. . . Uncle Mark/ took a corner,/ pockets full/ of rocks to/ become rolls.” One day turned into months.
  • Will’s Mom “cried and drank” herself to sleep.
  • Will talks about Buck. Will remembers that Buck was “a small-time hustler,/ dime bags on the corner” until Will’s dad was killed.

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes damn, asshole, and hell.
  • The word “fuck” is used once. Shawn has his gold chain on him when he’s shot. Will says about the chain, “Them fuckers ain’t even/ snatch it.”
  • After Shawn’s death, Will sees himself in the mirror and says “I looked and/ felt like/ shit.”

Supernatural

  • A childhood friend of Shawn’s, Buck, appears in the elevator. Buck is a ghost because he was shot and killed years previous. When Buck smokes, there’s “Fire./ Smoke./ But no ash.” As new people enter the elevator, it becomes clear that several ghosts are visiting Will to give him guidance and warnings.

Spiritual Content

  • Will thinks about God and says, “I swear sometimes/ it feels like God/ be flashing photos/ of his children,/ awkward,/ amazing,/ tucked in his wallet/ for the world to see… God ain’t/ no pushy parent/ so he just folds/ and snaps/ us shut.”
  • Buck’s stepfather was a preacher, “praying for anyone,/ helping everyone.”

by Alli Kestler

 

Sink or Swim

Abby and Jonah discovered a magic mirror that takes them into fairy tales. The first two times they traveled to a fairy tale and changed the story by accident. This time, Abby and Jonah promise not to change the fairy tale, but when the magic mirror pulls them into the Little Mermaid’s story, they are determined to help the Little Mermaid because the original story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Instead of being a fun retelling of The Little Mermaid, Sink or Swim has several flaws. In the first few chapters, Abby gives a summary of the first two books in the series. Unfortunately, the summary is uninteresting and jumps from topic to topic. Unlike the previous book, Jonah rarely appears. When he does, he spends all of his time arguing with his sister. Plus, the story contains some inconsistencies that stronger readers will notice. For example, Abby is afraid of the water and has difficulty swimming. Yet, she is able to swim underwater for several hours in order to find the sea witch.

Once Abby and Jonah get to the Little Mermaid’s world, the siblings struggle to find the mermaid. When they do find her, they learn that her name is Lana and that she is determined to be with the prince. When Lana meets the prince he quickly proposes, but then he backs out when he learns that Lana is a mermaid. Despite this, Lana still gives up everything in order be with the prince. Once Lana appears on land with legs, the prince says that he will honor his proposal. Instead of being a cute romance, Lana soon discovers that the prince is shallow. The prince says Lana “just needs to smile, dance, and be beautiful.” When Lana runs from the altar, the prince chooses a girl from the audience and marries her on the spot.

Even though Abby meets all the characters from the original fairy tale, the fairy tale characters are flat. Lana is convinced that she’s in love with the prince and refuses to listen to anyone’s advice. Abby warns Lana, “You’re going to lose everything! Your tongue! Your life! You can’t make a deal with the sea witch! You can’t give up everything that makes you who you are. It’s just not right.” Despite this, Lana still makes a dangerous deal with the sea witch that could end in death.

In Sink or Swim, Lana is neither likable nor relatable. The new ending leaves a lot to be desired. However, Lana is not the only negative character. Instead of being evil, the sea witch is portrayed as a misunderstood mermaid who reverses the spell in exchange for a date with Lana’s father. As Abby tries to negotiate a deal with the sea witch and save Lana’s life, Lana’s father flirts with the sea witch.

Fans of Disney’s The Little Mermaid will wish they left Sink or Swim on the library shelf. Sink or Swim doesn’t have any of the charms of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and all of the characters are lacking depth. The only redeeming value of the story is that it highlights the importance of being satisfied with your life and shows that love at first sight isn’t true love. If you’re looking for more fairy tale stories, Fairy Tale Reform School by Jen Calonita would be a better choice.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In order to undo the spell, the sea witch tells Abby and Jonah to kill the prince. The sea witch says, “I’ll give you a knife. You’ll use the knife to stab the prince in the heart. Then I’ll undo all the spells. Lana can go back to her life as a mermaid.” Abby and Jonah refuse to kill the prince.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the castle workers makes a potion that allows people to breathe underwater. The potion contains “Mermaid’s spit, a tablespoon of water, a teaspoon of club soda, and a pinch of algae.” Abby and Jonah take the potion and swim to Lana’s world.

Language

  • Abby thinks, “the prince is a bit of a jerk, but that doesn’t mean I want him dead.”
  • Abby calls the sea witch a coward.
  • The sea witch tells Abby that Lana is a “jerk! Just like her father!”

Supernatural

  • Abby and her brother Jonah travel through a magic mirror. When Jonah knocks on the mirror three times, “there’s a hissing sound. The mirror starts swirling and casts a purple light over the room. A second later, it’s pulling us towards it like it’s a vacuum cleaner.” When they step through the mirror, they land in the Little Mermaid’s world.
  • The original story of The Little Mermaid is repeated several times and explains that the mermaid exchanges her tongue for legs. In Sink or Swim, Abby is upset when Lana appears on land with legs. Abby gasps “in horror. Since she has legs and went to the sea witch… the sea witch has her…has her…has her tongue.”
  • In order to return home, Abby and Jonah swim into the sea witch’s cauldron. When Abby enters the cauldron, “it squeezes but doesn’t hurt.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Dragons and Marshmallows

Zoey discovers a glowing photo in her mother’s bedroom and her mother shares an amazing secret. Zoey’s mother has been helping injured animals who come to their backyard barn for help. Since her mom is going on a trip, it’s up to Zoey to keep watch on the magical photo for any animals that appear. But when a baby dragon appears, Zoey isn’t sure how to help. With the help of Sassafras, Zoey’s cat, Zoey must figure out what is wrong with the dragon. Will they be able to help the little dragon before it’s too late?

Dragons and Marshmallows will appeal to younger readers and parents. Zoey is an adventurous, bug-loving girl who uses science to solve problems. The curious cat Sassafras stays by Zoey’s side and adds some humor. Even though much of the conflict revolves around helping a baby dragon, Zoey also worries about her mom going on a trip. Zoey “felt a little nervous about not seeing her for a whole week.”

Little Marshmallow, an adorable magical dragon, is weak and must rely on Zoey for help. Zoey jumps right in and documents her experience in her science journal. In order to help Little Marshmallow, Zoey reads books that have fun reptile facts. After learning about reptiles, Zoey comes up with a hypothesis and makes a list of necessary materials. When Zoey writes in her science journal, the font changes to a large, kid-like font and occasionally uses illustrations. One of the best aspects of the story is that Zoey does not succeed the first time; instead, she makes mistakes and must use trial and error before she succeeds in helping the dragon.

Zoey’s adventure is shown through large black and white illustrations that appear on almost every page. Sassafras appears in many of the pictures, and clearly loves bugs just as much as Zoey. At one point, Zoey tells Sassafras, “I do not trust you out here with my bugs. My new little friends are not a snack!” Readers who are not fluent will need help with some of the vocabulary. However, with short paragraphs, plenty of dialogue, and a simple plot, Dragons and Marshmallows is accessible to most readers.

Dragons and Marshmallows combines magical animals, a relatable character, and the scientific method into an entertaining story that children will love. Zoey and Sassafras will not only entertain readers but also teach important lessons along the way. Readers will learn about reptiles, the importance of eating healthy foods, and perseverance. The end of the book has a glossary that explains unfamiliar terms. Even though Zoey and Sassafras is a series, the books do not need to be read in order. Readers who want more magical animal fun will also enjoy The Last Firehawk Series by Katrina Charman.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A frog told Zoey’s mom that “he’d been out past dark looking for something he’d dropped during the day. An owl attacked him. He was terrified and hurt, but managed to escape.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • When Zoey’s mother was a child, she found an injured frog. When she helped it, “the frog looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, ‘Thank you!’” The frog told other magical animals that Zoey’s mom would help them if they were injured.
  • Not everyone can see the magical animals. Zoey’s mom explains that the picture of the magical frog glows “because of the magic. Any time you photograph a magical creature, some of the magic stays in the photo.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Since the ritual that brought magic back to Orïsha, rebel maji have been concentrating their forces in preparation to take down the corrupt monarchy that has oppressed them for so long. Not only have the white-haired maji regained their magic, but nobles inside the monarchy have also begun to gain magical powers, heightening the stakes of the upcoming war.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance picks up shortly after the conclusion of Children of Blood and Bone.  The second installment in the Legacy of Orïsha series showcases the political struggles of the Orïsha’s rebel army. The story is told from the rotating perspectives of Inan, Zélie, and Amari. Inan, the crown prince of Orïsha, returns to his mother’s inner circle and struggles to understand which side he should take in the war. Amari, once the princess of Orïsha, has joined the rebellion and is hoping to lead the people to victory and take her place as their new queen. Zélie has become one of the most powerful maji in the rebellion. While she hones her new powers, she also must grapple with processing the traumas she underwent in the first part of her adventure, which was detailed in Children of Blood and Bone.

Amidst endless political turmoil and battles, the reader will likely find the most compelling part of the story to be the relationships between the characters. Amari and Zélie had a strong friendship in the first installment, but political stressors test their bond. Meanwhile, Zélie’s feelings for Inan, which were romantic in the first book, solidify into hatred. Consequently, Zélie begins a new romance with pirate mercenary Roen, while her brother Tzain continues seeing Amari.

Audiences may find the plot unsatisfying, as its pacing does little to hold the reader’s attention. The prolonged battles are difficult to follow and visualize. Characters talk abstractly about the deaths of soldiers and rebels while discussing war strategy, but this limits the battle’s emotional effect. The most compelling parts of this book are the emotional struggles that the characters experience. Zélie, Inan, and Amari all struggle with anxiety, grief, and the long-lasting effects of trauma. They make messy decisions, and their relationships break apart due to stress. Readers who rooted for the friendships forged in the first book may find themselves disappointed when these friendships fall apart.

The politics are hard to follow, and the constant switch of perspectives makes the battle scenes difficult to understand. Despite this, fans of the first book will be happy to have a continuation of the story. However, they won’t find the same adventure and excitement that made the first book so memorable.

Sexual Content

  • Tzain and Amari share an intimate moment. Amari burrows “back into Tzain’s neck, running my fingers across the new stubble along his chin… He runs his thumb along my jaw, igniting a surge almost as powerful as my magic.”
  • When Roen takes his shirt off, Zélie’s “face warms at the sight of his sculpted muscles.”
  • Zélie sees Inan and remembers his “lips that promised me the world. Hands that caressed my skin.”
  • Inan’s cousin jokingly tells him, “I’ve heard the legends of what greatness lies beneath your robes, but I fear I’m far too pure to see it for myself.”
  • Roen touches Zélie’s face, and she thinks, “Though I don’t want to feel anything, his touch makes an ember flicker in my stomach.”
  • During a romantic moment with Tzain, Amari notices “his sandalwood scent, I realize how much I want him. How much I want more… I imagine what a few hours with him might entail. How his kiss might feel.” When they kiss, their “lips meet, and the rush is so strong it spreads through my entire body. A flutter erupts between my legs as I shift, pressing into him.” They are interrupted and don’t go any further.
  • At a celebration, Amari slow dances with Tzain. “Tzain dips his chin and kisses the top of my head. He places his hands along my waist, making my skin tingle when his thumbs brush a sliver of bare skin.” Later, they leave the party and kiss more. Amari’s “fingers curl the moment his lips meet mine. I sink into him, tasting the sweet remnants of palm wine… I think of how many times I’ve imagined this moment. Imagined being here with him. My pulse races as I slip my fingers under the hem of his tunic.”
  • As they’re about to move further, Tzain makes her stop because he’s afraid she’s only consenting to intimacy because she’s afraid she’ll die soon. Amari says, “I don’t want to be with you because I’m afraid of dying. I want to be with you because I love you.” They take off their clothes and lay on a bed together, but the narrative skips over the actual act.
  • During an outing with Roen, Zélie asks him, “Is this a ploy to get me naked?” Roen says, “You know I don’t need ploys for that.”
  • Zélie sees something and says, “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” Roen tells her, “That’s usually what my lovers say about me.”
  • Zélie and Roen have an intimate moment. Zélie surrenders “to his touch. To the feel of his lips against my ear. He makes me lose myself in his arms, stealing the air from my lungs with every caress. ‘Is this okay?’ he whispers. My breath hitches as he squeezes my waist, hands lingering at the hem of my tunic.” They stop soon afterwards.

Violence

  • A lot of the battle scenes are magic-centered. For example, when Amari launches an attack on the enemy in battle, she magically “strikes them in an endless blue wave.”
  • Later in the battle, someone uses magic to turn the army’s mounts rabid. “Soldiers scream as they’re flung form their panthenaires’ backs. The riders foam at the mouth… A rabid panthenaire sinks its fangs into its soldier’s throat.”
  • While discussing military strategy, someone floats the possibility of the queen using innocent villagers “as shields.”
  • Zélie recalls how the mercenary Roen “once told me that his torturers carved a new line [in his arms] every time they killed a member of his crew before his eyes; twenty-three tally marks for twenty-three lives.”
  • As Amari begins to practice magic, she finds it painful. “Midnight-blue tendrils shoot from my fingertips like sparks from a flint. My palms sting as my skin splits. My scars rip open at the seams… I stumble into the mirror. Crimson smears across my reflection. Blood trickles down my chest as I fall to my knees.”
  • During a battle, the royal army releases majacite gas into the air, which is toxic to maji. Maji “scream like their nails are being ripped off.” A maji’s skin “sizzles and burns. He struggles to scream as he chokes on the black smoke.”
  • Zélie is hit by the toxic gas and describes how “smoke burns my skin like a branding iron… The poison sears the skin of my calf. Another cloud hits the scars on my back.”
  • The rebellion uses a large stone dome as their base of operations. Amari watches the queen use magic to collapse it. The queen “punches her fists into the ground. The earth splits open at her touch… Screams fill the dome as Nehanda’s fracture cuts across the sand… Then I hear the crack. The crack cuts through the dome’s wall… The dome crumbles.”
  • While recklessly riding her lionaire, Zélie crashes and nearly falls off a cliff. “I claw at the sky as I fly toward the forest. My body smashes through wiry branches before slamming into a tree. I wheeze as my chest collides with hard bark. My ribs fracture with a loud crack. Blood flies from my lips as my vision blacks out and I tumble to the ground.”
  • In their dreamscape, Zélie sees Inan “hold the scarred flesh of his abdomen as if it still leaks blood. I can almost see his memories coming back to him. The pain of his father’s sword driving into his gut.” He is physically unharmed. The wound he is remembering was detailed in the first book.
  • During a magical dreamscape, Zélie gets mad at Inan and makes “black vines tighten around his throat, cutting off his words as he chokes. Blood drips down his back, oozing as the jagged bark scrapes into his skin.”
  • While escaping the palace, Inan punches guards in the throat. The guards “wheeze… their grips loosen and I break free, ignoring the way they scream.”
  • Inan watches from a distance as Lagos comes under attack. “Countless balls of fire arc through the air. They explode when they hit the ground… Screams ring through the night as the firebombs ravage Lagos all at once.”
  • When Inan uses magic, he raises his hand “and my magic explodes with such force I hear the bones shatter in my arm.”
  • Inan sees someone from the royal military kill a maji by injecting them with majacite. The torturer says, “Do you know what it feels like to have majacite in your veins? First it blocks the illness you call a gift. Then it burns you from within.” Inan watches as the torturer “yanks the girl’s head to the side, exposing her neck… The girl cries out when the needle pierces her skin. She tumbles like a brick, body seizing in the dirt as the majacite kills her from within.”
  • During a fight, a fellow rebel maji attacks Amari with magic. “A cobalt cloud roars from [the maji’s] hand, searing into me. The cloud engulfs my mind like a match ignited in my skull… Her magic feels like thousands of nails drilling through my bones.” The fight is described over three pages.
  • The maji tells Amari during the fight, “Kill your vile family. Kill yourself.”
  • Amari fights the maji, and she screams “as I dig my hand into [her] hair and pull, driving my elbow into her temple… I straddle her body as a cobalt blaze ignites in my hands.”
  • When Zélie encounters Inan, she attacks him. Zélie shifts her “weight, twisting Inan’s sword from his hands. Before he can react, I extend my blades. My spear slices through his side… I drive my knee into his gut.”
  • Inan gets into a fight with a trusted friend. Inan pulls “a dagger from my belt, throwing it at his thigh.” The friend stops the dagger with magic, avoiding injury.
  • Zélie is caught in a massive chain of explosions and falls into water. “My ears ring from the string of explosions. I can’t see anything. Falling rocks slice through my skin… The collision knocks precious seconds of air from my lungs.”
  • A character loses a limb in the explosions, and “his severed arm lies underneath the boulder.”
  • A character dies when a column of earth is magically thrusted through his stomach. His “eyes bulge as it punctures his stomach… he slumps forward as blood leaks from his gut, pooling onto the silver floor.”
  • A maji summons a magical gas during battle. “The gas unleashes its attack, launching the wall of death… The cloud moves like a wave, crashing over everything in its path. Birds squawk as they try to escape… One’s wings fold as it’s flung into the cloud. The second it’s hit by the gas, its body shrivels. It plummets to the ground.”
  • Zélie watches the gas hit a young mother. “Blood shoots from her mouth on impact. Her skin shrivels as it turns black. I see the moment she realizes that she won’t make it. The baby falls from her hands.” The mother dies, but the baby is safe.
  • A maji attacks Amari. The maji “opens her hands and dark shadows of death shoot forth. Pain rips through me as they wrap around my body and my throat.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Roen has “a cigarette tucked between his teeth.”
  • The rebel maji drink palm wine during a celebration. Amari takes a cup and joins in a toast.
  • During the celebration, “music and laughter bounce against the sanctuary walls. Palm wine runs free.”
  • A couple makes a scene during the celebration. As a man tells a woman, “I love you!” the woman says, “You’re drunk!”
  • Amari doesn’t drink palm wine because “Father wouldn’t drink before battle. Neither can I.”
  • Inan drugs the queen by putting her own sedatives in a flute of wine.

Language

  • A piece of fabric is “not fit to wipe a leopanaire’s ass.”
  • “Gods” and “my gods” are used as invectives infrequently.
  • “Skies” is used frequently as an invective. For example, “What in the skies?”
  • Maggots is a slur that refers to the white-haired maji. People in the royal family often use the slur as a hateful pejorative.
  • Twice, specific gods are invoked by name: “For Yemoja’s sake” and “By the grace of Oya.”
  • Dammit is used four times.

Supernatural

  • Several chapters concern the effects of a ritual wherein Zélie binds her lifeforce to that of another maji. Zélie “used the moonstone to connect our lifeforces. But without a blood sacrifice to bind our connection, neither of us can survive.” While they are connected, if one sustains an injury, both of them will suffer.
  • An elder volunteers herself in a blood sacrifice. “Blood magic spreads inside her, glowing through every vein… With the final chant, the shine around her becomes too bright. She lights up the night like a comet flying through the sky.” Instead of physically dying, the elder magically disappears. This ritual marks a turning point in a battle and gives the rebel maji enormous advantage over their enemy.
  • Zélie and Inan meet in a dreamscape, a magical landscape that exists only in their dreams.

Spiritual Content

  • Much of the spiritual content concerns the magic system, and there is little separation between the spiritual and the supernatural. Maji get their powers from the same gods that they pray to.
  • In a moment of hopelessness, Zélie thinks that her dead mother “was wrong to keep me on the earth.” The spiritual beliefs are as real as the magic system, and Zélie previously met her dead mother during a magical ritual. The existence of an afterlife is treated not as speculation, but as fact.
  • Zélie says, “From the gods comes the gift of life… to the gods, that gift must be returned.”
  • Zélie says, “This is destiny. The gods don’t make mistakes.” She’s referring to her new role as a maji with the rebellion.

by Caroline Galdi

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Vol 3

Link continues on his quest to save the children from his village and dispel the dark clouds that are threatening to take over the land. Link returns to the Twilight Realm in the form of a wolf and quickly discovers that the children are stuck in the Twilight Realm as lost souls! With the help of an unlikely wolf ally, Link must learn to become a much stronger warrior if he wants a chance to save those he loves.

Much like the previous two installments, this graphic novel closely follows the plot of the video game with a few diversions and added elements. For intense Zelda fans, another taste of Twilight Princess will make this graphic novel enjoyable. However, casual gamers will likely be bored due to the repetitive plot, and those who are not familiar with the Twilight Princess game may be confused in a few places. All in all, this graphic novel is best for readers who are already a part of the Link fandom.

Link is a lovable character that will capture readers’ interests. While one of the children becomes slightly more developed in this installment, Link is mostly surrounded by two-dimensional characters. There is more action in this book than in the first book, but aside from the last battle, most of the battle images are not graphic. In Twilight Princess Vol 3, Link continues to explore what true strength really is, and he finally realizes that strength lies in protecting the innocent.

Twilight Princess Vol 3 has intense fighting and a dark tone. Even though the manga artwork is incredible, the fight scenes are a bit confusing because there is so much going on. Unlike the previous books, this volume shows different characters’ points of view, which helps develop the characters and gives the story an interesting twist. Twilight Princess Vol 3 continues to develop Link and his world. Although Twilight Princess Vol 3 contains action and adventure, the slow pace of world-building may make it difficult for some readers to get through the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While in his wolf form, Link kills two monsters by ripping them apart with his teeth.
  • Link fights a skeleton warrior as part of a training session. At the end of their fight, Link cuts off the skeleton warrior’s head. The skeleton warrior then stands up, picks up his head, and congratulates Link.
  • A captured village girl considers committing suicide. The girl wonders, “Rather than living alone with monsters…” and almost cuts her wrist with the pottery shard, but is interrupted by a kitten that needs her help.
  • Link battles a monster and his minions during a 32-page battle. In the end, Link slashes the monster across the chest with his sword, and the reader sees the monster bleeding profusely before he falls into a gorge.
  • A monster clubs a village boy in the head, and then is attacked by a mob of village children.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Link lives in a world with magic, shadow beasts, and demons. When people from the land of light are engulfed by the Twilight Realm, they turn into lost souls. This is what happens to the children from Link’s village. When he finds them, he cannot interact with them, as they are merely lost souls.
  • When Link travels to the Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a giant wolf. While in his wolf form, Link can communicate with animals.
  • Link learns that “humans aren’t the only race living in Hyrule” when he meets a Goron. Gorons are giant rock-like creatures that “live in Death Mountain and eat rocks.”
  • Link meets a magical wolf that transports Link to his realm in the clouds. Once there, the wolf shows himself as a skeleton warrior and trains Link to be a better swordsman.

Spiritual Content

  • There is a legend that when evil people tried to use magic to take over the land, “the goddesses grew angry at this affront and sent four spirits of light to seal the upstarts’ magical power away in the shadow crystal. Furthermore, the mirror of shadow prevented these wizards from entering the world of light. They were exiled to the twilight realm.”
  • Renado, a shaman and physician, takes the children to his village to protect them.
  • The children hide from the monsters in a house. There is a statue of a spirit in the house. The shaman says, “perhaps the power of the spirit Eldin does not allow the monsters to enter.” Link later meets the Eldin, “one of the spirits of light who gather in Hyrule and protect this land.”
  • Renado says, “thank the gods,” when his daughter is saved by monsters.

by Morgan Lynn

Race to the Sun

Lately, seventh-grader Nizhoni Begay has been able to detect monsters, like the man in the fancy suit who was in the bleachers at her basketball game. Turns out he’s Mr. Charles, her dad’s new boss at the oil and gas company. He’s alarmingly interested in Nizhoni and her brother, Mac, their Navajo heritage, and the legend of the Hero Twins. Nizhoni knows he’s a threat, but her father won’t believe her.

When Nizhoni’s dad disappears the next day, he left behind a message that said “Run!” The siblings and Nizhoni’s best friend, Davery, are then thrust into a rescue mission that can only be accomplished with the help of Diné Holy People, who are all disguised as quirky characters. However, their aid will come at a price. The kids must pass a series of trials that seem as if nature itself is out to kill them. If Nizhoni, Mac, and Davery can reach the house of the Sun, they will be outfitted with what they need to defeat the ancient monsters Mr. Charles has unleashed. It will take more than weapons “for Nizhoni to become the hero she was destined to be.”

Middle-grade readers will relate to Nizhoni, who wants to be good at something but just isn’t. When her emotionally distant father is kidnapped, Nizhoni embarks on a quest to save her father. However, she isn’t alone; Nizhoni’s book-loving best friend and annoying brother join her adventure through the Southwest. On the quest, Nizhoni and her friends meet the “Holy People” as well as some scary monsters.

The fast-paced story combines Navajo mythology with moments of humor, unexpected twists, and timeless lessons about friendship, family, and failure. The importance of hard work and helping others is weaved into the story. Spider Woman says, “All good things come through hard work. If something is too easy to get, it isn’t worth much, is it?”

At first, Nizhoni doesn’t feel like she has the qualities to become a hero. However, Nizhoni learns that she doesn’t need to change. One of the story’s recurring themes is: “Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to be. Just be who you are.” While Nizhoni shows bravery, she is able to defeat the monsters only with the help of others.

Race to the Sun will take readers on an action-packed quest and introduce them to Navajo mythology. Nizhoni is an interesting but imperfect narrator. Readers will relate to Nizhoni’s insecurities and her moments of courage. The conclusion is rushed, and there are several holes in the plot, but this doesn’t take away from the book’s enjoyment. For readers looking for more marvelous mythology books, the following books will delight you: the Storm Runner series by J.C. Cervantes and the Pandava series by Roshani Chokshi.

Sexual Content

  • When Nizhoni’s parents are reunited, they kiss.

Violence

  • Charles tells Nizhoni that he wants her dead. Without thinking, Nizhoni runs “full tilt at Mr. Charles. His startled eyes are the last thing I see before I kick that knife right out of his hand… I’m not done. I head-butt Mr. Charles in the stomach… And for good measure, I execute a perfect elbow strike to the cheek, just like I learned in self-defense class Coach taught in PE last year.” Nizhoni’s dad comes in and stops her.
  • In the past, Nizhoni had to attend anger management classes for “punching Elora Huffstatter in the nose.”
  • Adrien, a bully, and his friends corner Mac. “Mac screams, an animal-like bloodcurdling cry of rage. He slams his hands onto the ground, palms flat… A low rumble rolls across the baseball field, like an army of badgers tunneling through the earth, and then, suddenly, all the sprinklers turn on…” Mac makes the sprinklers shoot at the bullies. “The jets are all pointed at them, zipping back and forth in sharp slashing cuts, or pulsing bursts aimed at their eyes.” The bullies eventually run away.
  • To save Black Jet Girl, Nizhoni needs to get by two buzzards. She throws a feather into a fire and “it explodes into a million tiny salt crystals that pop and sizzle. Hot granules fly everywhere… The salt strikes their protruding eyes and they stumble around, screeching in pain.”
  • Some people believe that Spider Woman eats children. However, Spider Woman helps Nizhoni and her friends.
  • Nizhoni and her friends are following the Rainbow Road. They enter a corridor surrounded by rocks. When Mac disappears, Nizhoni runs after him. When she finds him, “he’s staring right at me. With big red eyes… He bares his sharp teeth and hisses… Monster Mac takes a swipe at me, and I see that besides having long, pointy teeth, he has long, pointy claws, too.”
  • When Nizhoni sees monster Mac, she turns to “launch a swinging kick right at the monster’s stomach. It lands with an Oomph! I elbow him in the chest and he doubles over. One more kick—this time to his ribs—and he’s down. He’s on all fours, panting.” Monster Mac “becomes a cockroach. It scuttles off…” The fight is described over one page.
  • In a multi-chapter battle, Nizhoni and her friends fight to keep the monsters from returning to earth. “Nizhoni lifts her bow and…release. The arrow flies true, a streak of white lightning that hits the banáá yee aghání in its veiny red eyeball. The monster screeches and veers away…”
  • A banáá yee aghání goes after Nizhoni’s mother. “Mom waits until the buzzard is practically on top of her, and then she swings the sword. Lightning crackles from its tip, slashing the monster’s face. Ligai drops, almost too quickly, streaking under the buzzard and dragging its beak across the monster’s underside, tearing it open.”
  • During the fight, Mac falls off a flying bird. “A shimmery substance unfurls in the air underneath him like a silver net. He falls into the glimmering stuff, and it completely envelops his body, rolling him into what looks like a giant burrito.” Later, Mac finds out that Spider Woman put him in a spider web to keep him safe.
  • When Mr. Rock points a gun, Nizhoni’s mom “launches herself into the air, her sword slashing downward, and Mr. Rock’s gun goes flying—while still attached to his hand.”
  • Mr. Charles shoots an arrow at Nizhoni. “It’s a direct hit right over my heart. I scream as fire radiates through my body… I struggle to breathe, my pulse beating too loud in my ears… I fall to the canyon below.” Nizhoni discovers that she cannot be killed by her own arrow.
  • Nizhoni uses lightning “that’s been building up in my blood. And I blow Mr. Charles to smithereens… And then a sound like a bubble popping. And then more pops as all the banáá yee aghání in the sky above me burst into a blaze of white lightning and turn into ash that rains down on me.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • A girl tells Nizhoni that her mom “left us because I was a dirty Indian. Then she made war-whopping noises like something out of a bad Western.”
  • Adrien, a bully, and his friends bother Mac. The bully says, “Marcus Be-gay! Oh, please be gay!” The rest of the boys chant, “Gay! Gay! Gay!”
  • Adrien calls Nizhoni a loser.
  • “Oh my God” is used as an exclamation one time.
  • Heck is used three times. For example, when Mr. Charles meets Nizhoni and her brother, who are a mess, Mr. Charles asks, “But holy heck, what happened to you all?”
  • Nizhoni calls her brother a dork.
  • A buzzard tells his brother, “Don’t be an idiot.”
  • Nizhoni says her mom is “badass.”

Supernatural

  • Nizhoni can tell if a person is a monster in disguise. When she sees Adrien, a bully, “his eyes meet mine and that horrible sensation—my monster detecting—springs to life. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and a chill like the trail of an ice cube scuttles down my spine.”
  • Nizhoni knows the “language of animals” and can see in the dark.
  • Marcus can control water. He tells Nizhoni, “I’ve made water move before. Like in the bathtub.”
  • Nizhoni’s stuffed horned animal comes to life. Nizhoni had “been raised to take seemingly supernatural things in stride. Up to now, talking animals hadn’t been a part of my everyday life, but my shimásání taught me there’s more to the world than we humans can see…”
  • Mr. Charles is a shape-shifter who can look human. He is related “to a nasty kind of monster called a banáá yee aghání. These are vicious bird creatures.”
  • Nizhoni meets a crystal boy, who is made of white crystal rock, and a girl, who is made out of black rock.
  • Nizhoni and her best friend Davery go into a school that is having a prom. They are tempted to stay, but when they leave, “in an instant, the whole gym shimmers and disappears.”
  • Nizhoni looks into a mirror. She “leans forward to press my hands against the mirror, and suddenly the surface is not there anymore… I go plummeting into the glass.” Nizhoni is transported to a glade, “where she can see people, but they can’t see her.”
  • Nizhoni meets the sun, who is “wearing blinding bright armor and carrying a golden shield. And step-by-step on an invisible set of stairs, he appears to be climbing into the sky.”
  • Nizhoni finds her mom, her friends, and others encased in amber. When the amber cases shatter, Nizhoni looks up, and “Mac is standing on a platform, yawning and stretching his arms over his head.” All the people in the amber come back to life.
  • Nizhoni and her friends must fight a group of buzzards, but “only a monster slayer can look into their eyes.”

Spiritual Content

  • Along the journey, Nizhoni meets the Holy People. Someone tells her, “The tricky part is that the Holy People don’t always answer, or at least not in ways that you might recognize. But they are always there.”
  • After Nizhoni’s father is kidnapped, she prays “with all my might that he’s out of that trunk and getting food and water.”

Red Queen #1

In the Kingdom of Norta, the silver blood nobility rule over the red blood commoners. While the Silver enjoy luxury, life without strife, and supernatural powers, the Reds live in poor villages, forced into a war they don’t want, and powerless against their Silver rulers. Mare Barrow is a young, Red girl simply trying to get by. After her brothers are shipped off to war, Mare steals money and food to survive, helping her parents and younger sister when she can. When she meets the mysterious Cal, her whole world is flipped upside down. He helps assign Mare to the royal Silver court, where she discovers Cal is the crown prince.

After an accident where Mare falls onto a dome of magical lightning, she discovers she has a power just like the Silvers (a supposed impossibility). To cover up her newfound power, the King forces Mare into the role of a lost Silver princess, betrothing her to his youngest son, Maven.

As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she begins to fall in love with Maven’s older brother, Cal. A budding love won’t stop Mare from supporting her family and fellow Reds.  In order to fight the Silvers from inside the palace, Mare secretly joins the Red freedom group. With every step she takes, danger closes in around her. If she steps the wrong way, Mare and everyone she loves will certainly die.

Red Queen focuses on the struggle surrounding the Silver and Red caste systems. For anyone born with Silver blood, life is incredibly easy and much of that luxury is created through the hard work of the lower caste of the Reds. Reds are basically soldiers for the Silvers, as the Silvers send Reds to fight in a war with a neighboring nation, the Lakelands. This gap in the social hierarchy and the ways in which the Silvers flaunt their status create a suspenseful, dangerous situation for any Red, like Mare, that interacts with a Silver because the Silvers can punish the Reds for any reason.

The story unfolds from Mare’s point of view, which allows the reader to see Mare’s inner thoughts, anxieties, and frustrations. However, Mare isn’t the most likable main character. Mare is the typical YA heroine, who is poor, but not particularly perceptive. Despite being described as knowing how to read people, she falls into numerous traps. Even though Mare is clearly on the side of the Reds, she manages to depict both sides in equal light, showing how both the Silvers and Reds can be kind or cruel.

The novel’s main theme is betrayal, which allows Mare to learn not to trust others. This theme of betrayal makes the plot predictable and a bit slow-paced. However, both the politics of the Norta Silver court and the action scenes, which include some spectacular fights, help make up for the slow pace. The Silvers aren’t entirely unified, which leads to some interesting scenes that pit the Silver caste against its own. Mare’s growing love for Cal, the crown prince, also helps to balance out the story. Red Queen leaves readers with a cliffhanger that will leave them dying to know what happens in the next book, Glass Sword.

Sexual Content

  • Gisa, Mare’s younger sister, has a crush on Mare’s friend. After Mare mentions him, Gisa’s “skin flushes bright red at the mention of him. She even giggles, something she never does. But I don’t have time for her schoolgirl crush, not now.”
  • Cal, the elder prince, is regularly tasked with dealing with suitors. Mare watches as a noble girl’s “gaze lands on Cal—I mean the prince—trying to entice him with her doe eyes or the occasional flip of her honey-blond hair.”
  • When Mare and Maven go to see Cal, they see him removing his armor. Mare thinks, “He doesn’t notice me at first; he’s focused on removing more of his armor. It makes me gulp.” Later, she’s close to Cal and thinks, “Unable to meet his gaze, I focus on what’s right in front of me. Unfortunately, that happens to be his chest and a much-too-thin shirt.”
  • Mare realizes she’s beginning to fall for Cal. While visiting her home, she thinks, “What can I say? That he’s kind? That I’m beginning to like him?” Later on, she kisses him. “His lips are on mine, hard and warm and pressing. The touch is electrifying, but not like I’m used to. This isn’t a spark of destruction but a spark of life.”
  • Mare also kisses Maven. She notes, “His kiss is not at all like his brother’ Maven is more desperate, surprising himself as much as me.”

Violence

  • At the beginning of the novel, two Silvers, Samson and Cantos, fight each other. Before Samson “can hope to stand, Cantos is over him, heaving him skyward. He hits the sand in a heap of what can only be broken bones but somehow rises to his feet again.” Immediately after, “Samson spits, sending a sunburst of silver blood across the arena.” Samson takes control of Cantos’s mind, causing Cantos to kill himself. “Another twist of Samson’s hand and silver blood splashes across the sand as Cantos plunges his sword straight through his armor, into the flesh of his own stomach.”
  • After a mass panic, Mare is attacked by a Silver. A “frothing blue wave knocks me sideways, into churning water. It’s not deep, no more than two feet to the bottom, but the water feels like lead.” Mare watches as her sister is attacked, Gisa’s “eyes are on mine as he brings the butt of his gun down, shattering the bones in her sewing hand.”
  • At a Silver fighting arena, Mare watches as “birds dive headfirst into the lightning shield, bursting in little clouds of blood, feathers, and deadly electricity, my awe turns to disgust. The shield sparks again, burning up what’s left of the birds until it shines like new.”
  • Mare falls onto the lightning shield. Mare’s “head bangs against the shield, and I see stars. No, not stars. Sparks. The shield does its job, lighting me up with bolts of electricity. My uniform burns, scorched and smoking, and I expect to see my skin do the same.” After Mare gets back on her feet, she tries to run from angry Silvers who shoot at her. As she runs, “a blast of gunfire explodes over my head, forcing me to drop to the floor.”
  • Mare’s kingdom, the Kingdom of Norta, is at war with the Lakelanders, another nation. Maven tells Mare, “I spent three years in the barracks, following Cal and officers and generals, watching soldiers fight and die for a war no one believed in. Where Cal saw honor and loyalty, I saw foolishness. I saw waste. Blood on both sides of the dividing line, and your people gave so much more.”
  • A group of Reds plan to assassinate prominent Silvers. In the aftermath of the assassination, Mare witnesses as “Sonya screams nearby, bent over the body of Reynald. The spry old Ara wrestles her off the corpse, pulling her away from the chaos. Reynald’s eyes stare glassily up at the ceiling, reflecting the red light.”
  • After the assassination, Mare trips and “lands face-to-face with a corpse, staring at Colonel Macanthos’s scar. Silver blood trickles down her face, from her forehead to the floor. The bullet hole is strange, surrounded by gray, rocky flesh.”
  • After the assassinations, the group of Reds responsible are found and tortured. Mare sees that the torturer “is not gentle, wrenching out Farley’s wounded arm. Farley yelps in pain but still says nothing.”
  • In order to free the Reds, Mare attacks two Silvers and gets hurt. “The bullet hits me in the stomach, but my lightning blazes up the metal rail, through his skin, and into the healer’s brain. Pig-Eyes shouts, firing his own gun. The bullet digs into the wall, missing me by inches.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Cal likes to visit Red bars. When Cal tells Mare the palace is stuffy, she says, “And crowded bars, Red bars, aren’t?”
  • Oliver, one of the boys that Mare trains with, clutched a “sloshing drink.” He grabs onto Cal, but “Cal shifts out of Oliver’s grip. The drunk windweaver doesn’t seem to notice and keeps babbling.”
  • When going through her mentor’s room, Mare notices “the bottle of brown liquor on the table, occupying a spot usually reserved for tea.”

Language

  • Lucas, Mare’s personal guard, doesn’t like his cousin, Evangeline. He tells Mare, “Evangeline is a bitch.” Mare echoes this sentiment later on, saying, “Evangeline Samos is a bloodthirsty jerk.”
  • After the royal ball is bombed, Maven says, “Bastards.”
  • After the bombing, the Queen says the Reds “are a disease.”

Supernatural

  • Silvers use magic to help them rule over the Reds. They are sometimes seen as gods. As Mare states, “The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.”
  • Whispers are Silvers with the rare ability to enter someone’s head, read someone’s thoughts, and control someone’s mind.
  • When Mare and her sister try to enter a Silver city illegally, Mare’s ID is scrutinized by a Silver guard. Mare thinks, “I wonder if he’s a whisper too and can read my mind. That would put an end to this little excursion very quickly and probably earn me a cable noose around my neck.”
  • Swifts are Silvers that can enhance their speed. After Samson kills Cantos, Swifts rush in to help. “A few are swifts, rushing to and fro in a blur as they herd us out.”
  • A nymph is a Silver that can manipulate water.
  • Telkies are Silvers that can levitate objects.
  • A greeny is a manipulator of plants and earth. Mare watches as a “florist runs his hands through a pot of white flowers and they explode into growth, curling around his elbows.”
  • Strongarms are Silvers that have superhuman strength. Mare notices “A Silver next to me clenches his fist and pounds on the bar, sending spider cracks through the solid rock top.”
  • A cloner is a Silver that can clone themselves. When Mare is caught stealing by a cloner, she thinks, “And then there are three of them, four, five, six, surrounding us in the crowd.”
  • The King is a burner who can control fire. Mare watches as fire “seems to burn against his inky black hair flecked with gray.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Jonathan Planman

If the Shoe Fits

When Abby and Jonah step through the magic mirror, they travel to Cinderella’s fairy tale. Cinderella has met a prince at a ball and dreams of marrying him. When Abby and Jonah try to help Cinderella, the two siblings accidently change the story and end up making everything worse. Soon, Cinderella’s foot is broken, swollen, and her glass slipper won’t fit! How can Cinderella prove she’s the prince’s true love if her foot can’t fit into the glass slipper?

Abby and Jonah ask Cinderella’s fairy godmother, Farrah, for help, but Farrah isn’t impressed with Cinderella’s desire to have the prince save her. Farrah tells Cinderella, “rescue yourself. You need to learn to stand on your own two feet.” This sends Cinderella on a journey to find a way to support herself financially and free herself from her evil stepmother. Abby and Jonah promise to help Cinderella. Is there any way for Cinderella to become self-reliant? Can Abby and Jonah help Cinderella find her happily ever after?

If the Shoe Fits gives Cinderella’s character a new spin. Cinderella embarks on a journey with Abby and Jonah’s help. This journey allows Cinderella to learn that she doesn’t need a prince to rescue her because she is capable of saving herself.

All the original Cinderella characters make an appearance. However, the fairy godmother doesn’t just grant wishes. Instead, she wants to teach Cinderella a valuable lesson. The two stepsisters, Beatrice and Kayla, are interesting. And the stepmother? Well, she’s just evil. Even though the characters are not well-developed, younger readers will enjoy the new changes in Cinderella’s story.

The original Cinderella was written in French by Charles Perrault in 1697, but Mlynowski uses names and terms that are not consistent with the original story. The fairy tale characters talk like modern-day teens. For example, one character uses the term “knock yourself out.” Another character asks Cinderella, “You don’t mind if I crash your new digs until the wedding, do you?” Even though this doesn’t interfere with the story’s enjoyment, stronger readers will notice the unrealistic dialogue.

The conclusion adds in a dash of magic that will have readers smiling. The ending also shows that girls do not need a man to save them. In the end, Cinderella rejects the prince’s proposal for two reasons. Cinderella tells the prince, “I don’t really love you…not the way Kayla does. You deserve someone who loves you for the right reasons. Everyone does.” Cinderella adds, “Two days ago, there was nothing I wanted more than to marry you. I wanted you to rescue me.” Since then, Cinderella has become self-reliant, and she doesn’t want to give that up.

With a high-interest topic, easy vocabulary, and a smattering of magic, If the Shoe Fits will have younger readers eager to jump into the fairy tale world. More advanced readers, who love fairy tales, should add The Prince Problem by Vivian Vande Velde to their reading list.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In order to steal Farrah’s magic wand, “Beatrice jumps onto Farrah’s back, the wand flies out of Farrah’s hand, and Beatrice and Farrah tumble to the ground. The wand goes rolling across the floor. Betty scoops it up.”
  • In order to get the magic wand out of the stepmother’s hand, Jonah, who was turned into a mouse, annoys the stepmother. She then “swings her foot back and sends him flying across the room. He somersaults through the air and lands in the fireplace.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Cinderella’s stepmother calls the fairy godmother a “fairy freak.”
  • Beatrice pretends to be the prince’s true love. In order to warn the prince, “Kayla-rat scurries up the couch, jumps on her sister’s shoulder and tries to bite her.”

Supernatural

  • Abby and Jonah use a magic mirror to travel into the fairy tale world. When Jonah knocks on the mirror three times, the mirror spins, hisses, and turns purple. The siblings then walk into the mirror.
  • Using the fairy godmother’s wand, “Betty swished toward Cinderella and hurls a zap her way. There’s a burst of yellow sparkle and then Cinderella starts to shrink. She gets smaller and smaller and then even smaller. And turns grey. And grows a tail.” Betty turns Cinderella into a mouse.
  • When Betty turns Abby into a mouse, “All I can see is yellow, and then zoom! The room is suddenly increasing in size. I feel sick. It’s like I’m on a Tilt-A-Whirl. And then—plunk. I’m on my tush with my legs in the air in front of me.”
  • Betty turns the fairy godmother into a lizard. “Farrah yelps as she starts to shrink and turn green and scaly.”
  • Betty turns her daughter Kayla into a rat. “Betty just turned her own daughter into a mouse. A very large, brown mouse with very sharp teeth.”
  • Betty tries to make Beatrice’s foot fit the glass slipper. Betty “points the wand at her daughter’s left foot and zaps it. It resizes all right. It expands… and then it turns orange. It’s a pumpkin.”
  • The fairy godmother Farrah reverses the stepmother’s magic spells, turning everyone back into humans. Then Farrah turns the stepmother and her daughter into birds. “They instantly shrink into two little birds. Two caged little birds.”
  • Abby and Jonah learn that the portal home doesn’t have to be a mirror because a fairy can “enchant different household objects and appliances.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Quest for the Golden Fleas

Welcome to Mount Olympus, a pet supply and rescue center that sits high on a hill in Athens, Georgia. By day, the overconfident hamster Zeus, wise cat Athena, proud pufferfish Poseidon, loyal grasshopper Demeter, and treat-loving pug Ares are under the watchful eye of their caretaker, Artie, who is obsessed with Greek history. Her favorite podcast, “Greeking Out,” so enthralls her pets with its legendary tales of heroes and heroines that they believe themselves to be the actual megastars of mythology!

Under the cover of nightfall, this gang of gods pursues quests bestowed upon them by the magical, all-knowing Oracle of Wi-Fi. From an accidental plunge into a raging whirlpool (a toilet), to an epic voyage aboard the Argo (a robot vacuum), join Zeus and his minions in this romp through Greek mythology.

The Quest for the Golden Fleas is a strong start to the Zeus The Mighty Series. The hamster Zeus’s arrogance and desire to prove his worth gets him into hilarious situations. Readers will laugh when Zeus and the other Greek gods find wonder and danger in everyday objects. For example, when Zeus and his friends inspect the contents of a purse, they are amazed by the “artifacts” and believe “this relic is surely enchanted.” Similar to the ancient Greek gods, Zeus and Poseidon often disagree, which adds suspense and humor to the story.

Zeus is convinced that finding the golden fleas will prove he is worthy of ruling Olympia. While Zeus looks for the golden fleas, he abandons Demeter, who is being chased by a dragon (an iguana). All of the danger comes to life in black and white illustrations that excellently show the emotions of all of the animals. The illustrations show Athena racing through the store on a robot vacuum and bats chasing Zeus as he wields his shield (a tape measure) and blasts the bats with torchlight (a flashlight). While much of the plot is humorous, Zeus learns an important lesson—friendship is more important than a “furry old Fleece.”

While readers may not understand all of the references to Greek Mythology, the non-stop action will keep readers entertained. Zeus and the other gods are all completely different in a loveable way. The unique story combined with the funny illustrations will appeal to young readers. The Quest for the Golden Fleas will spark readers’ interest in Greek Mythology. The back of the book gives historical information about the Greek gods and The Myth of Jason and the Argonauts. For more humorous mythology, readers should add the Odd Gods Series by David Slavin & Daniel Weitzman to their must-read list. For readers who desire a more action-packed mythological story, the Underworlds Series by Tony Abbott will keep you at the edge of your seat.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A colony of bats (Harpies) attacks Zeus. When Zeus tries to turn on the light, “Another Harpy barreled out of the blackness. Zeus blinded it but not before it lashed out and nearly knocked the torch from his arm.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When Poseidon gets out of his fishbowl, Zeus asks, “What is that fool doing?”
  • An old hamster calls Zeus a coward.
  • Heck is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Zeus opens a portal (a door), he says, “Thank gods.”

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Vol 2

When Link travels to the Twilight Realm to save Ilia, he is transformed into a wolf and is quickly captured. A Twilight imp named Minda takes a liking to Link and helps him escape. Minda introduces Link to Princess Zelda, who explains how the King of Shadows has cast the kingdom of Hyrule into perpetual twilight. The King of Shadows seeks to rule everything under the light and dark. Princess Zelda is powerless to stop him. She prays every day that the gods will save her people. Is Link the prayed-for hero?

But as a wolf, what can Link do? He can talk to animals in his wolf form, but he cannot communicate with his friends or wield a weapon. As Minda leads Link on a quest, it is unclear to readers and to Link himself whether Minda is helping Link save his people or tricking him for her own gain. While this graphic novel has more action than the first book, video gamers who have played Twilight Princess may become bored, as this graphic novel follows the game so closely that it begins to feel like a recap. For readers unfamiliar with the games, this installment may be more interesting.

Link is a relatable character that readers will root for, but the other characters in the story remain two-dimensional, leaving much to be desired. This story has several battle scenes scattered throughout, but there are only a few violent images where Link is shown slashing monsters with his sword or attacking in his wolf-form. The images are not gory. The theme of Twilight Princess Vol 2 follows Link’s struggle to find his inner strength in order to protect his loved ones.

Twilight Princess Vol 2 is darker than the video game. However, the story will appeal to reluctant readers because the Manga-style illustrations tell the story through pictures and uses a limited amount of words. Each page contains 1-6 simple sentences, which appear in thought bubbles. Similar to the original Batman comics, Twilight Princess’s battle scenes use onomatopoeia words, such as “Bwommm” and “gyaaah.” Overall, Link fans may be better off sticking with the video game and skipping the graphic novels altogether.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A “demon thief” is banished to the Twilight Realm. He is stabbed with a sword, and the flesh melts from his face before he is sucked into the Twilight Realm.
  • When Princess Zelda tells the story of her kingdom being attacked, the illustrations depict an explosion and a monster slowly crushing a guard to death.
  • Link battles a shadow monster and eventually kills it. The fight is illustrated over six pages.
  • A demon monkey lashes out with fire, burning the forest and killing several animals, who are drawn terrified, aflame, and wounded.
  • Link fights the demon monkey. Their first battle takes place over three pages. Their second battle takes place over five pages.
  • Link battles a giant plant monster and slays it. This battle takes place over nine pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Link lives in a world with magic, shadow beasts, and demons. When people from the land of light are engulfed by the Twilight Realm, they turn into lost souls.
  • When Link travels to the Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a giant wolf. While in his wolf form, Link can communicate with animals.
  • Link meets an alpha monkey who “absorbed the power of shadow… He was originally a monkey, but now he’s a demon. He can’t tell friend from foe.”
  • When Link unlocks his instinctive wolf senses, he’s able to see the insects that are “the true form of the shadow demons.” One of the insects is controlling the monkey demon, making him act cruelly.
  • Link finds a boomerang, which speaks to him. It says, “I am the fairy of winds that inhabits the boomerang. You freed me from an evil force, so I can reclaim my true power… Please, use the boomerang in which my power resides.”

Spiritual Content

  • There is a legend that when evil people tried to use magic to take over the land, “the goddesses grew angry at this affront and sent four spirits of light to seal the upstarts’ magical power away in the shadow crystal. Furthermore, the mirror of shadow prevented these wizards from entering the world of light. They were exiled to the twilight realm.”
  • Link meets a light spirit who tells him, “By orders of the gods, I am one of the four spirits of light who protect Hyrule.” The spirit asks Link for his help in saving the land from darkness.

by Morgan Lynn

The Sky Unicorn

Ava travels to different towns with her parents as a part of a traveling troupe. As the group travels downriver, Ava sees a herd of unicorns. Ava sees Sir Fitzroy and his guards trying to capture the unicorns. Ava is horrified when Clover, a baby unicorn, is stolen from his herd by the evil Sir Fitzroy.

Then Ava meets a girl named Sophy, who gives her a magical stone. With the help of the magical stone, Ava and Sophy plan to rescue Clover. The two girls dress as page boys and sneak into town. Will the two girls be able to rescue Clover, or will Sir Fitzroy catch them first?

Sophy and Ava are sweet girls who care about animals. Several times throughout the story, the girls use creative problem-solving skills in order to help the unicorns. As the girls work together, they help and encourage each other. Even though the story’s setting is similar to a fairy tale, the girls are not princesses. Instead, Sophy is a castle maid and Ava performs in a traveling troupe, making the characters more relatable.

The story uses easy vocabulary, simple sentence structure, and black and white illustrations to make The Sky Unicorn accessible to younger readers. Illustrations appear every 1-3 pages, and they help readers understand the story’s plot. The Sky Unicorn has a high-interest topic, a non-scary villain, and two girls who save the day. Ava and Sophy are characters that readers will want to emulate; both girls are kind to animals, brave in the face of danger, and have positive attributes. Animal-loving, fairy tale fans should also add the Diary of an Ice Princess series by Christina Soontornvat to their reading list.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Ava sees a knight and some guards chase the unicorn herd. The herd is able to safely hide.
  • Sir Fitzroy and his guards try to sneak up on the unicorn herd. “The men searched the path and peered at the lake, but after a few minutes they gave up and went back into town.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Ava and Sophy both have a Speaking Stone. The stone “lets you talk to magical animals.”
  • When Ava cuts her finger, a unicorn uses “secret magic” to heal Ava’s injury. “Ava watched in astonishment as the little unicorn bent his golden horn to touch her finger. Slowly the cut on her hand healed until it looked as if it had never been there at all.”
  • In order to send a message to a dragon, Sophy “called a golden songbird by whistling a special tune that Windrunner the dragon had taught her. Soon one of the birds heard her call. It flew down to perch on her hand and looked at her with bright black eyes.” The bird agrees to carry the message.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Fairest of All

Once upon a time, a mirror slurped up Abby and her brother Johan. When Abby and Johan are magically transported into the fairy tale world, they don’t mean to change Snow White’s happily-ever-after. Because of them, Snow doesn’t eat the poisonous apple. Snow doesn’t meet the prince. Abby is determined to fix Snow’s story; she’s just not sure how to make the prince meet and fall in love with Snow.

Abby and Johan are complete opposites, which adds humor to the story. Abby needs a plan for everything and constantly tries to curb Johan’s adventurous spirit. The one thing that remains constant is their desire to help Snow. Unlike the original fairy tale, in this story Snow White’s personality is multifaceted. She proves that a girl doesn’t need a prince in order to live happily ever after. Instead of following the traditional plot, Fairest of All takes the reader down a winding path where danger is behind every corner.

Fairest of All is an imaginative retelling of Snow White’s fairy tale. Told from Abby’s point of view, the story’s start is slow, but once the siblings show up at the dwarves’ cottage, the action picks up. With short chapters, easy vocabulary, and an interesting narrator, Fairest of All will appeal to a wide range of readers. The story leaves several questions unanswered, which will have readers reaching for the next book in the series, If the Shoe Fits. More advanced readers should add The Secret Rescuers series by Paula Harrison to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Evil Evelyn tries to give Snow a poisoned apple. While arguing with Snow, Evelyn begins to sweat, and “makeup starts to smear down her face,” which allows Snow to recognize her stepmother. Johan retells the story, “Snow’s stepmom was trying to kill her with a poisoned apple, and that’s why she was wearing a disguise.”
  • Snow explains how she came to live with the dwarves. Snow’s stepmom “sends Xavier, her huntsmen, to kill me. He let me get away, but then I got lost in the forest… I came across the cottage… So I fell asleep on an empty bed, and the next thing I knew, there were seven little people staring at me.”
  • Johan tells Snow that the huntsman “told the queen that he had done it. And I think he gave her the lungs and liver of some animal, pretending it was you.” This comes up several times throughout the book.
  • Evil Evelyn tried to kill Snow using laces. The stepmother “tied them so tight Snow couldn’t breathe. We [the dwarves] came home and found Snow lying on the floor. We untied them just in time.”
  • When Prince Trevor was two, he threw a rock at a stranger.
  • Disguised as a child, Evil Evelyn offers to give Snow a cookie. Snow takes the cookie and her stepmother was “lifting the hammer and swinging it toward Snow’s head.” Abby sees the hammer and she “jumps towards Snow and push her out of the way… At the same time, the young girl’s hammer swings through the air and misses its target.” Evil Evelyn flees.
  • Snow, Johan, and Abby sneak into the castle. If they are caught, Snow says Evil Evelyn will kill them. Then Johan askes, “Do you think she’d eat our lungs and livers too?”
  • In order to try to “fix” Snow’s story, Snow pretends to be dead. As she lays in the coffin, she puts her head on a poisoned pillow. Snow screams. “Snow pops up, the tips of her hair burnt off like she stood too close to a fire.” To get the poison out of Snow’s hair, Abby dumps water on her head.
  • In order to get into the castle, Snow, Abby, and Johan swim the moat. Two crocodiles snap at the three friends. “Baby Crocodile blocks our path from behind and snaps her baby teeth… Mama Crocodile lunges again.” Johan throws stew sandwiches at the crocodile, who gobble them up. The three are able to escape.
  • Snow, Johan, and Abby try to leave the castle. They are on the drawbridge when soldiers appear. Evil Evelyn “aims a bowstring at Snow and pulls the trigger… In what seems like slow motion, he [Prince Trevor] jumps in front of Snow.” Trevor is injured, but Snow is saved.
  • The arrow hit Prince Trevor “square in the chest… Prince Trevor is still standing, but he’s shaking. After a few dramatic moments, his knees buckle, and he falls right over the bridge and into the water. Splash!”
  • Snow is able to drag Prince Trevor to shore. Trevor wakes up and says, “You kissed me. I was dead, and your kiss woke me up.” Snow explains that she didn’t kiss Trevor, but that “it was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.” The escape scene is described over 10 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Jonah and Abby travel through a mirror and end up in Snow White’s fairy tale. When Jonah knocks on the mirror three times, the mirror sucks Jonah and Abby into it.
  • Time in the real world travels slower than in Snow White’s world. Every hour in the real world equals one day in Snow’s world.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Many Waters

When identical twins Dennis and Sandy accidentally mess with their father’s scientific experiment on faster-than-light travel, they are transported to a desert wasteland. Stranded and confused, the two boys meet the locals—dark-skinned people who are only four feet tall. Between the strange people, the miniature mammoths, unicorns, and manticores, Sandy and Dennis are convinced they’re on a strange planet on the other side of the universe. After nearly dying from heatstroke, they are taken in by Grandfather Lameck. When they meet Grandfather Lameck’s son, Noah, the twins realize they have been thrown back in time and are on Earth in the time right before the Great Flood. But the flood is coming—will the twins find a way home before the rain starts to fall?

To make matters more complicated, humans are not the only intelligent beings to deal with. There are seraphim, a tall and beautiful winged people who know many things—maybe even how to get the twins home—but the seraphim do not like to interfere with the lives of men. Then, there are the nephilim, just as tall and beautiful as the seraphim, but they spend their time seducing women with worldly pleasures and extravagant treasures. The nephilim are suspicious of the twins’ sudden appearance, and they will do anything to find out what they are up to.

Once again, L’Engle spins a magical tale that centers on the battle between good and evil. Yalith and Jephath, two of Noah’s children, are kind people that do all they can to help the twins. But most people who live in the oasis are corrupt and evil, abandoning tradition to pursue pleasure and to get ahead in life. The twins and Yalith are all tempted to give in to worldly pleasures. While conflicted, all three reject temptation in exchange for kindness, unicorns, and listening to the stars.

While there are good and bad characters, several members of Noah’s family and Noah himself are more ambiguous, showing that even godly people are not perfect. While God is mentioned several times as “El,” the story centers more around the twins as they adapt to the time period and try to find a way home. The seraphim and the nephilim are revealed to be angels and fallen angels, respectively. They add intrigue and excitement to the story. Overall, Many Waters is a fun tale with a unique twist on the story of Noah’s Ark that will leave readers satisfied.

Sexual Content

  • In Noah’s time, bothmen and women only wore loincloths. Therefore, Sandy and Dennis see several women’s breasts, but none are described graphically. When meeting Yalith, Sandy notes “the girl, who wore only a loincloth . . . was gently curved, with small rosy breasts.”
  • Yalith kisses Aariel, a seraph, much as a child kisses a parent. “Like a child, she held her face up for a kiss, and Aariel leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers.”
  • Yalith sees her sister with a nephilim. Her sister was “gazing up at him adoringly, leaning against him so that her rosy breasts touched his pale flesh.”
  • Japheth kisses his wife several times. Once, “Japheth leaned to her and kissed her on the lips. Dennis . . . thought that it was a nice kiss. It was the kind of kiss he had seen his father give his mother. A real kiss. If he lived through this, he would like to kiss someone like that.” Another time, Japheth’s wife “bent toward him to kiss him.”
  • A girl from the oasis flirts with Sandy. She “bent closer and brushed her lips against his.” Later, she tries to seduce him. “He was not prepared to have the light suddenly darkened by Tiglah’s face as she pressed her lips against his . . . he knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too; he was ready, but not, despite her gorgeousness, with Tiglah . . . her breathing mingled with his. He knew if he did not break this off, he would not be able to. With a deep inward sigh, he pulled away.”
  • Sandy thinks about taking Yalith to the future with him. Sandy “looked at Yalith’s small and perfect body, barely covered by the loincloth, her breasts delicate and rosy, and had a moment’s absurd vision of her in one of the classrooms at the regional high school.”
  • When saying goodbye, “Yalith nodded, then reached up to Sandy and kissed him on the lips. Then Dennis. Full, long kisses.”

Violence

  • Sandy is kidnapped. “He tried to wriggle out of the clutch of whoever was carrying him, and a fish crashed into his belly, winding him, and something sharp pricked his arm.”
  • When Japheth tries to rescue Sandy, “the older man swooped on him with the spear, and despite Japheth’s quick reflex, the spear cut across his ribs, and a trickle of blood slid down his side.”
  • Japheth comes home with “an ugly bruise on his cheek where an angrily thrown stone had hit him.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Noah has the “largest and best vineyards on the oasis . . . the fame of his wine had spread to many other oases round about.”
  • A man is sick from drinking too much. Afterward, “the smell of Ham’s sickness mingled with the smell of wine, of meat form the stewpot, of the skins of the tent.”
  • Yalith remembers how her sister had a wedding with “far too much wine, inferior, at that.”
  • When Noah reconciles with his father, he “handed his father a small wineskin. . . The old man held the wineskin to his lips, then smacked them in appreciation.” Sandy also takes a small sip.

Language

  • When a woman’s family kidnaps him, Sandy thinks, “you slut.”
  • An angry man says, “Auk’s nuts to you.”

Supernatural

  • Sandy and Dennis accidentally mess up their father’s scientific experiment and are sent back in time. “Dennis groped through a pervasive mist, his hands touching nothing. Came a great sonic boom. Then absolute silence.”
  • In the past, there were miniature mammoths. “From behind the outcropping of rock came something grey and sinuous which the twins at first thought was a snake. But it was followed by a head with small, bright, black eyes, and great fans of ears, and a chunky body covered with shaggy grey hair.”
  • There are manticores in the past, which try to eat the mammoths several times. The manticore had a “man’s face with filthy hair. . . From the mat of hair came two horns, curved downward, with sharp points like boar’s teeth. . . The rest of the creature pushed into the tent. The head did not belong to a man’s body but to a lion’s . . . the lion did not have a lion’s tail but a scorpion’s.” The manticores can only say the word “hungry!”
  • There are unicorns that flicker in and out of existence. They can flicker out of existence in one place, then be called into existence miles away instantaneously. “On the horizon to the far left, moving toward them, appeared a creature which shimmered in and out of their vision, silvery in color, as large as a goat or a pony, with light flickering out from its forehead.”
  • There are seraphim (angels) and nephilim (fallen angels). Both have “Great wings. Much long hair. . . The seraphim are golden and the nephilim are white, whiter than sand.”
  • Both the seraphim and the nephilim can turn into animals; each has their own animal they transform into. One of the seraphim is a scarab beetle. “Grandfather Lameck took it on his palm, a scarab beetle, glinting bronze in the lamplight. The old man stroked it gently with a trembling forefinger, and closed his palm. Then came a vivid flash of light, similar to that of the unicorn’s horn, and a tall presence stood in the tent, smiling at the old man…Hair the color of wheat with the sun on it, brightly gold, long, and tied back, falling so that it almost concealed tightly furled wings.” One of the nephilim is a giant desert lizard. “As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly [its] arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple.”
  • Yalith shows Dennis how to listen to the stars. “He listened, listened, focusing on one bright pattern of stars. Closed his eyes. Listened. Seemed to hear a delicate, crystal chiming. Words. Hush. Heal. Rest. Make peace. Fear not. He laughed in excitement. Opened his eyes to twinkling diamonds.”

Spiritual Content

  • A woman tells the twins, “We don’t have any men on the oasis who are as tall and like gods as you are.”
  • The twins discover that Grandfather Lameck’s son is Noah, from the biblical story of Noah and the Arc.
  • Yalith recounts her family lineage, which includes the biblical figures Methuselah and Enoch. “Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years, and then El took him.”
  • The people in Noah’s time call God “El” and El sometimes speaks to them, though his words are never shared directly in the story. Noah says, “Yesterday, when I was working in the vineyard, the Voice spoke to me. El told me that I must find wives for you.”
  • Japheth mentions a curse on the land. “When our forebears had to leave the Garden, they were told, Accursed shall the ground be on your account. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow.”
  • The seraphim mention the pattern. They say the twins “are part of the pattern,” but “the pattern is not set. . . It is fluid, and constantly changing.” They always maintain that the pattern “will be worked out in beauty in the end.”

by Morgan Lynn

The Dragon Thief

Jaxon had just one job—to return three baby dragons to the realm of magic. When he got there, only two dragons were left in the bag. His best friend’s sister, Kavita, is a dragon thief!

Kavita only wanted what was best for the baby dragon. Now every time she feeds it, the dragon grows and grows! How can she possibly keep it secret? Even worse, stealing the dragon has upset the balance between the worlds, and the gates to the other realm have shut tight! Jaxon needs all the help he can get to find Kavita, outsmart a trickster named Blue, and return the baby dragon to its true home.

The sequel to Dragons in a Bag continues Jaxon’s story; however, many of the characters from the first book only make a very brief appearance. Instead, The Dragon Thief jumps back and forth between Jaxon’s and Kavita’s points of view. Jaxon and Kavita both want to return the dragon to the realm of magic, but they don’t work together until the very end. Much of the story focuses on both Jaxon and Kavita trying to figure out how to return the dragon. With talking animals, magic, and a cast of helpful characters, the story has many interesting elements.

Readers may be disappointed that the dragon rarely appears in the story. However, several new characters add interest to the story. Jaxon meets a feisty fairy and gains the help of a classmate. At one point Jaxon thinks, “A week ago, a talking pigeon would have freaked me out. But over the past few days, I’ve encountered a very determined squirrel, actual dinosaurs, a talking rat, and three baby dragons. I’ve learned to take it all in stride.”

The Dragon Thief hints at some important themes, but they are undeveloped. Several times the story mentions slavery and freedom, but the information is not integrated into the story and seems random. Jaxon’s family only appears at the end of the story, but he thinks, “This is my family. Sure, we’re different from other families. Ma’s a witch, and I’m her apprentice. Mama’s a widow, and Trub’s reformed thief. We’ve all made mistakes—big and small—but we stick together because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

The Dragon Thief has some interesting elements, but the undeveloped plot will leave readers with many questions. One positive aspect of the story is that both Jaxon and Kavita are diverse characters who want what’s best for the dragon. Overall, The Dragon Thief has enough mystery and magic to interest fantasy fans, but the abrupt ending and the many characters may confuse some readers.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the end of the story, Ma tells Jaxon, “Then let’s get this party started boy! Bring me a beer!” Ma means a root beer, but readers won’t know that unless they’ve read the first book in the series.”

Language

  • As Jaxon is walking in a park, he almost steps on “a pile of dog crap.”
  • Kavita’s brother tells his friend that Kavita is a brat and a “pain in the butt.”
  • A boy tells Jaxon that “a lot of kids at our school are jerks.” Later, the same boy says Blue is a jerk.
  • While looking for Blue, Jaxon asks a rat for help. The rat tells Jaxon, “Blue’s a nasty piece of work. Trash, really…He hasn’t got a selfless bone in his freaky blue body.”
  • A boy calls Blue a creep.
  • Three times, someone calls the trickster Blue a fool.
  • Blue calls Jaxon and his friends “rotten brats.”

Supernatural

  • Ma is a witch who can travel to another dimension where magic exists.
  • Kavita and Aunty go to see Bejan, an astrologer and psychic. Bejan explains, “Jyotisha, or the science of light, involves the study of the stars and planets.” Bejan uses a dragon’s birthday to give Kavita and Aunty advice.
  • Jaxon can talk to animals.
  • Jeff, a fairy, “raises his arms once more, but this time when he lowers them, a circle of blue light appears. It’s as if the fairy traced a bubble in the air and then willed it into existence.” The bubble allows Jaxon to talk to someone who is in another dimension.
  • Blue takes animals from another dimension and turns them into tattoos. Blue explains, “These are my guests… We share space and show respect… Real tattoos are permanent, but these…are just temporary.” Later, Blue’s tattoos are taken away. “We see movement beneath his clothing and hear a faint clamor as Sis extracts the creatures tattooed on Blue’s skin. One by one the mermaid, parrot, sea serpent, unicorn, and others peel off and float toward Sis. Still in miniature, the creatures huddle together and are soon encased in a clear spear that forms above Sis’s outstretched palm.” The creatures are taken back to the realm of magic.
  • Blue uses the tattoos to give him power. He creates “potions, spells, curses, and hexes. Everything humans most desire—love, wealth, revenge, success. Put it in a bottle and slap on a price tag.”
  • A dragon appears and then changes into a “human form.”
  • Jaxon is given a potion that will wake up Ma. He is instructed to put three drops in a glass of water “before the moon wanes.” When Ma drinks the potion, she awakens.
  • In order to transport the dragon to the proper diminution, “Sis points at the creature and draws a circle around it once, twice, and by the third time another elastic sphere has formed. Unlike Blue’s tattoos, however, the dragon doesn’t accept its fate. It whines and claws against the sphere, but to no avail.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Storm Dragon

Sophy was picking apples in an orchard when a cute dragon falls from the sky. The injured little dragon, named Cloudy, is in danger. The queen and the captain of the guard don’t like magical creatures. Sir Fitzroy and his guards are searching everywhere for Cloudy. They want to lock him in the dungeon.

With the help of a magical stone, Sophy is able to talk to Cloudy. It will take courage and creativity to keep Cloudy safe. With the help of a friend, Sophy knows how she can help heal Cloudy’s injured wing…but how can Sophy sneak Cloudy out of the castle, find the healing plant, and save her cute purple friends?

The Dragon Storm shows that you don’t have to be royal in order to be special. Sophy is a castle maid, but she is still able to keep Cloudy safe. Sophy’s kind nature shines as she smuggles Cloudy into the castle. Suspense is created as Sir Fitzroy and his guards hunt for the dragon; however, his exploits are silly and will cause readers to giggle. Readers will enjoy seeing Cloudy using his magic to stop Sir Fitzroy from yelling at Sophy. With a cute dragon, a sweet friendship, and a fairy tale setting, The Dragon Storm will delight younger readers.

The story uses easy vocabulary, simple sentence structure, and black and white illustrations to make The Storm Dragon accessible to younger readers. Illustrations appear every 1-3 pages, and they help readers understand the story’s plot. Readers will fall in love with Sophy and will be excited to read the next book in the series, The Sky Unicorn. Much like Harrison’s Rescue Princess Series, The Secret Rescuers will encourage readers to be kind to animals, brave in the face of danger, and ready to help a friend in need.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Cloudy eats dragonweed. Sophy picks some of the plant and “Cloudy munched those too and then flapped his wings. This time his injured left wing looked as strong as the right one!”

Language

  • When a guard says he doesn’t believe a dragon is near the castle, Sir Fitzroy yells, “It was a dragon, you fool!”

Supernatural

  • Sophy finds a magic “Speaking Stone” that allows her to talk to dragons. A dragon tells Sophy, “A Speaking Stone is very powerful and very precious. Each stone chooses a keeper and will work for the person alone.”
  • When the Queen and Sir Fitzroy yell at Sophy, Cloudy causes a gust of wind. “Then a sheet floated out of the basket, followed by a pair of the queen’s royal bloomers, trimmed with golden thread… More clothes and sheets sailed into the hall as the wind become wilder… Five small whirlwinds were sneaking across the hall, twisting and turning as if they were dancing. The silverware rattled on the banquet table, and the royal tablecloth flew upward, scattering pie crumbs everywhere.”
  • Cloudy is a storm dragon. Storm dragons “bring rain clouds from the ocean and blow them across the dry land. My brother says that’s how the trees and flowers and vegetables get the water they need to grow.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

A Court of Mist and Fury

The story continues in this thrilling sequel. Feyre must heal from her torment and learn to control her newfound power. Feyre has saved Prythian from the evil tyrant Amarantha, and she has been reborn as a faerie. As Feyre adjusts to her new faerie body, she uncovers new powers she has been gifted from the high fae. Feyre struggles to overcome trauma causing her relationship with Tamlin to become increasingly strained. As their relationship deteriorates, Tamlin becomes more controlling. Eventually, Tamlin uses magic to trap Feyre inside their home. When Feyre calls for help, Rhysand, the high lord of the night court, hears her plea and saves her. Rhysand takes Feyre to the night court where her next chapter begins.

While Feyre begins to heal from her broken relationship with Tamlin, she finds an unlikely ally in Rhysand. As Feyre heals, her bond with Rhysand grows stronger; however, she must ready herself for an approaching threat. Dark plans are revealed, and Feyre realizes she might be the key to stopping an imminent war against Hyburn, an ancient land that is plotting a war to take over Prythian and the human lands. Will Feyre ever recover from her trauma? Will she let herself have feelings for the beautiful high lord of the night court? Will Feyre be able to master her new powers in time to save Prythian?

 A Court of Mist and Fury is a stunning sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses. Feyre is a strong female who leads the fighting and demonstrates great powers among the faeries. A Court of Mist and Fury focuses on the inner workings of the night court and introduces new, funny, and vibrant characters. As Feyre’s adventure continues, her new powers begin to make her a target among the high fae. Instead of backing down, she trains to control her powers and to protect herself. Feyre’s powers put a feminist spin on the series because the high lords need Feyre’s help to save Prythian. With this sequel, Maas creates a story that is even better than the first. A Court of Mist and Fury continues to dive into the rich history of the faerie world and the different courts.

Maas develops her characters in a realistic way that allows the readers to relate to her strong characters and fall in love with them. Maas allows her protagonist to have multiple relationships and friendships, showing that a broken heart is not the end of a character’s story. She allows Feyre to have multiple loves, with many highs and lows, to show a more realistic look at what it is to find love. These different love interests and friendships display the true difficulties of relationships and that, ultimately, everyone has to do what is healthiest for themselves when it comes to love. These relationships make the story more genuine and powerful, even though the setting is in a magical world. With Feyre’s heartbreak and her healing from physical trauma, the story touches on her mental health and the effects of depression. While Feyre is healing, she goes through a mourning process and comes out the other side stronger than ever. This novel delves into the raw emotion of heartbreak, depression, and the healing that everyone, human or faerie, must go through in their life.

Sexual Content

  • Feyre and Tamlin have an intimate moment. Feyre “moved on him. Lightning lashed through my veins, and my focus narrowed to his fingers, his mouth, his body on mine. His palm pushed against the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, and I groaned his name as I shattered.” The scene is described over two pages.
  • To distract the court, Rhys and Feyre pretend to be a couple. They put their “show” relationship on display and Rhysand’s “hand slid higher up my thigh, the proprietary touch of a male who knew he owned someone’s body and soul. He’d apologized in advance for it- for this game, these roles we’d have to play. But I leaned into that touch, leaned back into his hard, warm body.” This exchange goes on for three pages.
  • Feyre and Rhysand stay in an inn, and they share a bed. “The fingers he’d spread over my stomach began to make idle, lazy strokes. He swirled one around my navel, and I inched imperceptibly closer, grinding up against him, arching a bit more to give that other hand access to my breasts.” They decide to not go any further sexually, as they are in the beginning stage of their relationship. This intimate moment lasts two pages.
  • Feyre and Rhys’s mating bond snaps into place, and they have sex for the first time. Rhys “deepened the kiss, and I wrapped my legs around his back, hooking him closer. He tore his lips from my mouth to my neck, where he dragged his teeth and tongue down my skin as his hands slid under my sweater and went up, up, to cup my breasts. I arched into the touch and lifted my arms as he peeled away my sweater in one easy motion.” The scene is described over three pages.

Violence

  • Rhys tells the story of how Azriel got his scars on his hands. “For the eleven years that Azriel lived in his father’s keep, she [Azriel’s stepmother] saw to it that he was kept in a cell with no window, no light. When he was eight, his brothers decided it’d be fun to see what would happen when you mix Illyrians quick healing gifts with oil and fire. The warriors heard Azriel’s screaming. But not quick enough to save his hands.”
  • Rhys and Feyre are flying when arrows attacked them. Feyre “felt the impact—felt blinding pain through the bond that ripped through my own mental shields, felt the shudder of the dozen places the arrows struck as they shot from bows hidden beneath the forest canopy.”
  • Feyre attacks a camp of faeries that have taken Rhys hostage. “The others around them shouted as I dragged my ash arrows across their throats, deep and vicious, just like I’d done countless times while hunting. One, two—then they were on the ground, whips limp. Before the guards could attack, I winnowed again to the ones nearest. Blood sprayed. Winnow, strike; winnow, strike.”
  • Valerian is attacked, and Feyre witnesses a woman impaled on a light post. The woman’s “body bent, her back arched on the impact.” As the city is being attacked, Feyre hears “screams, the beating wings, the whoosh and thud of arrows erupted in the sudden silence.”
  • Feyre attacks the Attor, a winged monster, before he can escape the attack on Valerian. The Valerian “shrieked, wings curving as I slammed into it. As I plunged those poisoned ash arrows through each wing . . . the Attor could not break free of my flaming grasp.”
  • Jurian “fires an ash bolt through Azriel’s chest” that almost kills him.
  • Feyre, Rhys, and the rest of his court try to infiltrate Hyburn and nullify the Cauldron before it can be used for evil. When they get to Hyburn, they realize it is a trap. Tamlin has sold them out to the king. The king kidnapped Feyre’s human sisters, who were “gagged and bound.”
  • The king forces Feyre’s sisters to go into the cauldron to be transformed into fairies against their will. “Elain was hoisted up between two guards and hoisted up. She began kicking then, weeping while her feet slammed into the sides of the cauldron as if she’d push off it or knock it down. The guards shoved my sister into the cauldron in a single movement.”
  • The king breaks Feyre and Rhys’s bond. “Tamlin gripped my arms as I [Feyre] screamed and screamed at the pain that tore through my chest, my left arm. A crack sounded in my ears. And the world cleaved in two as the bond was broken.”

 Drugs and Alcohol   

  • Feyre mentions drinking wine with most meals.
  • Mor tells Feyre, “come sit with me while the boys drink.”
  • Feyre talks about how Mor “had been out drinking and dancing until the mother knew when.” Feyre eludes that Cassian and Azriel have hangovers, describing them as “grumbling and wincing over breakfast, had looked like they had been run over by wagons.”
  • Feyre goes out to a nightclub with Rhys, Mor, Cassian, and Azriel. She describes “nursing her glass of wine” as Mor and Cassian “danced around the bar.”

 Language

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes: shit, damn, ass, and hell.
  • Rhys and Feyre are having an argument and Rhys says, “I don’t give a damn what I have to do.”

Supernatural

  • Feyre asks Rhysand about his winnowing powers and he says, “Winnowing? Think of it as . . . two different points on a piece of cloth. One point is your current place in the world. The other one across the cloth is where you want to go. Winnowing… it’s like folding that cloth so that two spots align. The magic does the folding and all we do is take a step to get from one place to another.”
  • Feyre meets a water-wraith and describes her as wearing “no clothes. Her long, dark hair hung limp and her massive eyes were wholly black.”
  • Feyre uses her powers unknowingly and goes into the mind of Lucien. She describes it as, “still there, still seeing through my eyes, but only half looking through another angle in the room, another person’s vantage point – his head. I had been inside his head, had slid through his mental walls.”
  • Tamlin and Feyre get into a fight, and he gets so enraged that his power “blasted through the room.” The room is destroyed around Feyre, but she isn’t hurt. When Tamlin tries to come to her, he hits an invisible wall around her. “And I realized that the line, that bubble of protection. . . It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one but a physical one, too.”
  • Feyre starts to feel talons growing on her hands. She describes it as “where my nails were growing, curving. Not into talons of shadow, but claws.” She can also will them away “like blowing out a candle.”
  • Rhysand tells Feyre about her power to look into other people’s minds, which is a power he also shares. “We’re called daemati- those of us who can walk into another person’s mind as if we were going from one room to another. If you were to ever encounter a daemati without those shields up, Feyre, they’d take whatever they wanted.”
  • Feyre describes Amren, one of Rhysand’s inner circle members in the night court, as being an other-worldly being inside a human body. “Her silver eyes were like nothing I had ever seen; a glimpse into the creature that I knew in my bones wasn’t high fae. Or hadn’t been born that way. The silver in Amren’s eyes seemed to swirl like smoke under glass.”
  • Rhys describes the Illyrians, a race of winged faerie warriors, since he is half Illyrian and his closest friends and court members, Cassian and Azriel, are also Illyrian. “The Illyrians are unparalleled warriors, and are rich with stories and traditions. But they are also brutal and backwards.”
  • Rhys and Feyre go to a magical prison inside a rock with “the foulest, most dangerous creatures and criminals you can imagine” to visit a prisoner called the bone carver. The bone carver is a magical creature that may “appear to you as one thing, and I might be standing right beside you and see another.”
  • Feyre sees the weaver, a scary, mythical being. She describes her with “gray skin, wrinkled and sagging and dry. Her lips had withered to nothing but deep, dark lines around a hole full of jagged stumps of teeth.”
  • Amren doesn’t eat human food, and while they are all out to dinner together, the restaurant’s owner brings her “a goblet filled with dark liquid.” After Amren takes a sip, her teeth were “gleaming with blood.”
  • Feyre practices with her water powers by “making water rise from the tub, then shaping little animals and creatures out of it.”
  • The night court celebrates a holiday called Starfall, where stars “cascaded over them filling the world with white and blue light.” Rhys tells her they’re not stars at all, but “spirits on a yearly migration to somewhere. Why they pick this day to appear here, no one knows.”

 Spiritual Content

  • Feyre meets Ianthe, one of the high priestesses of Prythian. “Among the high fae, the priestesses oversaw their ceremonies and rituals, recorded their histories and legends, and advised their lords and ladies in matters great and trivial.”
  • The bone carver tells Feyre about the Cauldron where “all magic was contained inside it and the world was born in it. It could not be destroyed, for it had made all things, and if it were broken, then life would cease to exist.”

by Adeline Garren

Dreams That Sparkle

Belissima is the prettiest pony at the Enchanted Pony Academy — everyone says so. The problem is, no one seems to see what else Belissima is: talented and hardworking. She dreams that someday everyone will see that her magic doesn’t have anything to do with her looks! When the royal children come to the Academy for the selection ceremony, Belissima is determined to show that she’s not just a pretty pony. It’s her last chance to prove that she can be so much more than a show pony.

Belissima is upset that people always make comments about her beauty. She wishes someone would notice that “she had the top grades in her class, or that she was a leader who always tries to be patient and pleasant with all the ponies at school.” Belissima even tries to hide her beauty because she is afraid that a royal child will choose her based on her looks and not on her personality. This story teaches that ponies (and people) have many aspects that make up his/her personality.

The students use the Magic Treats and Eats Cookbook to make some magical treats, which add some humor to the story. However, the story has little action and mostly focuses on Belissima’s attempts to hide her beauty. Some readers may have a hard time understanding Belissima’s conflict. Although Belissima finds her perfect match in the end, the two rarely interact. Unlike the previous books, this story has less action and the message is harder to understand.

Dreams that Sparkle will entertain those who have already transitioned to chapter books. Cute black and white illustrations help break up the text and appear every three to five pages. Although the vocabulary isn’t difficult, the text-heavy pages and long sentences may be overwhelming for beginning readers. Fans of the Enchanted Pony Academy books will enjoy the story. The Enchanted Pony Academy series does not need to be read in order; however, readers new to the series should begin with Let It Glow or Wings That Shine.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Darn is used once.

Supernatural

  • Each pegapony has a different Glitter Gift. The Glitter Gifts include being able to become invisible, being able to talk to winged animals, teleportation, and making flowers bloom. One pegapony can even shoot sparks out of his horn.
  • Belissima’s Glitter Gift is making her coat change color and sparkle. Later she learns that her other Gift is healing magic, which only works on her perfect match.
  • Several times in the story, someone levitates an object. For example, “Daisy galloped into the stable with a tray levitated by her side.” Daisy’s tray has posy pies on it.
  • Trying to make herself less beautiful, Belissima cast a spell by saying, “With these shinny shears, snip my mane shorter than my ears.” When she chants the spell, “the scissors zoomed through the air, and she watched as strands of her mane fell to the barn floor around her.”
  • Belissima casts a spell so she can see what she looks like. She says, “In front of me here, make a mirror appear.” She uses the mirror and sees that her mane grew back.
  • Belissima cast a spell so she can write a message to a friend. She chants, “To Sunny, send this note, so she can see what I wrote.” After Belissima says the spell, “the note folded itself and flew through the air, right out the door.”
  • Daisy finds a book, Magic Treats and Eats Cookbook, and makes posy pie. When Belissima eats the treat, her breath smells like flowers for hours.
  • A pony makes a recipe that allows him to eat a treat and then a rainbow will appear out of his horn. When the pony does this, “a rainbow arched over the arena, and the colorful light enveloped [Belissima]” The rainbow makes Belissima’s Glitter Gift ever stronger.
  • Belissima makes a treat that will make her less beautiful. When she eats the treat, “her soft purple coat was covered in moldy green spots. . . The moldy spots were bigger and fuzzier than she’d expected. They were darker green, too. The rainbow must have really enhanced the power of the recipe.”
  • Headmaster Elegius can teleport through a silvery orb.

Spiritual Content

  • None

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

When Mad Dog Branzillo, a leader of a small South American country, develops nuclear weapons, it seems the end of the world is at hand. Mad Dog is a crazy man full of hate who would be willing—eager even—to destroy the world. When Meg’s family hears this, there seems to be nothing to do but wait for the end of the world. But Mrs. O’Keefe, Meg’s mother-in-law, is suddenly reminded of an old Irish rune that her grandmother taught her about when she was a child. The rune is supposed to have great power, but can only be used in the time of greatest need.

Meg’s little brother Charles Wallace decides to use the rune. When he does so, he is sent a unicorn who can ride the winds of time. The unicorn tells him that history is full of Might-Have-Beens, where a single decision could change the course of history. To save the world, the unicorn takes Charles Wallace back in time and sends him ‘within’ the lives of several people—from the first Native American settlers to the Civil War period. As a passenger in these people, Charles becomes them. He sees what they see and hears what they hear. But he is able, perhaps, to nudge them in a better direction and change the vital Might-Have-Beens that lead to Mad Dog Branzillo.

L’Engle’s book is an allegorical tale that explores the battle of good and evil that started when the fallen angels were banished from heaven. While most of the story is phrased in terms of good and evil, there are points where the unicorn mentions heaven, angels, and other biblical concepts explicitly. In addition, when Charles Wallace visits a settlement in the time of the Salem Witch Trials, God is discussed frequently and scripture is used both by the pastor trying to condemn a woman and by the man defending her.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet is all about the importance of choices, even those that seem small. It explores two family lines: one family who leaned toward violence and hungered for power, and another family who promoted peace and friendship. The two family lines parallel the struggle between good and evil, heaven and darkness. While the story is enjoyable and full of good messages, there are many characters that Charles interacts with throughout history whose many names may become confusing for less advanced readers. For those able to follow the complicated family lines and keep track of the many names, A Swiftly Tilting Planet is yet another fun ride in the Time Quintet.

Sexual Content

  • A pregnant Native American woman uses “birthing flowers” to prepare for her birth. “She knelt and breathed in the fragrance of the blossoms, took them up in her hands, and pressed them against her forehead, her lips, her breasts, against the roundness of her belly.”
  • A boy reports that his sister and the hired hand were “kissing.”

Violence

  • Two brothers fight. The brother who wins holds his brother’s head underwater until his brother promises to leave and never come back. “Madoc forced Gwydyr into the lake, and held him down under the water until rising bubbles told him that his brother was screaming for mercy.”
  • The unicorn is injured. “The entire abdominal area, where the webbed hammock had rubbed, was raw and oozing blood. The water which had flooded from [his] nostrils was pinkish.”
  • When she was an only child, Mrs. O’Keefe’s mother “came to breakfast with a black eye, explaining that she had bumped into a door in the dark.” It’s clear that her new husband abuses her.
  • Mrs. O’Keefe’s stepfather boxed her brother’s ears and pinched her inappropriately as a child. When her grandmother tried to intervene, the man tried to hit her. “Chuck thrust himself between his grandmother and stepfather and took the full force of Mortmain’s blow. Again Breezie screamed, as Chuck fell, fell down the steep stairs in a shower of broken china and glass.”
  • A girl says she saw Jack O’Keefe “take a homeless puppy and kill it by flinging it against the wall of the barn.”
  • A man comes back from war and says, “I saw a man with his face blown off and no mouth to scream with, and yet he screamed and could not die. I saw two brothers, and one was in blue and one was in grey, and I will not tell you which one took his saber and ran it through the other.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Charles Wallace’s family has plum pudding. “Mr. Murry got a bottle of brandy and poured it liberally over the pudding…The brandy burned with a brilliant blue flame . . . Mr. Murry tilted the dish so that all the brandy would burn.”

Language

  • “God” and “Oh God” are used a few times. They are said in devoted ways, not as profane exclamations.
  • A woman says, “Thank God,” when she learns that her son is alive.
  • A man writes a letter describing a Native American who helped the settlers: “God knows he is helpful.”
  • When his friend is giving birth, Brandon prays, “Oh God, God, make Zylle be all right.”

Supernatural

  • Mrs. O’Keefe gives Charles Wallace a rune that her grandmother gave her as a child. It calls upon heaven to stand against the darkness, and Charles uses pieces of the rune when he is in danger. The first time he says, “In this fateful hour I call on all Heaven with its power!” and a unicorn appears to help him. Another time, he says, “And the fire with all the strength it hath,” and the sun causes a pile of flowers to burst into flames.
  • Charles Wallace and his sister Meg know how to kythe, which is a deeper form of telepathy that “was being able to be with someone else, no matter how far away they might be…talking in a language that was deeper than words.” In this way, Meg is able to be with her brother even when he goes on a long journey.
  • Charles Wallace travels in time with a unicorn. “Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light.”
  • Charles Wallace goes back in time to prevent a madman from destroying the world. The unicorn explains, “What we must do is find the Might-Have-Beens which have led to this particular evil. I have seen many Might-Have-Beens. If such and such had been chosen, then this would not have followed. If so and so had been done, then the light would partner the dark instead of being snuffed out. It is possible that you can move into the moment of a Might-Have-Been and change it.”
  • Twice, Charles Wallace is blown into a Projection, which is “a possible future, a future the Echthroi want to make real.” The first time, they arrive in a lava world and see a “monstrous creature with a great blotched body, short stumps for legs, and long arms, with the hands brushing the ground. What was left of the face was scabrous and suppurating.”
  • A Native American says, “When the soothsayer looked into the scrying glass and foretold my father’s death, he saw also that I would live my days far from Gwynedd.”
  • A Native American sees a vision of the future in the reflection of a pond. “He feared the small oval of water which reflected Gwydyr’s face, growing larger and larger, and darker and darker, quivering until it was no longer the face of a man but of a screaming baby.”
  • Brandon, an early North American settler, sees pictures of the future. A Native American tells him, “Among my people you would be known as a Seer, and you would be having the training in prayer and trusting that would keep your gift very close to the gods, from whom the gift comes.”
  • When injured, the unicorn takes Charles Wallace to his planet in order to be healed. There the snow heals them, the unicorn drinks liquid moonlight, and Charles Wallace sees a unicorn hatch from an egg. “A sharp cracking, and a flash of brilliance as the horn thrust up and out into the pearly air, followed by a head with the silver mane clinging damply to neck and forehead. Dark silver-lashed eyes opened slowly, and the baby unicorn looked around.”

Spiritual Content

  • A Swiftly Tilting Planet is an allegorical story about the powers of good and evil, of light and darkness, of heaven’s creation and those who would want to destroy everything. There are many references to this battle throughout the book, beginning with the following description of the Echthros, the enemy of everything good. “The Echthros wanted all the glory for itself, and when that happens the good becomes not good; and others have followed that first Echthros. Wherever the Echthroi go, the shadows follow…There are places where no one has ever heard the ancient harmonies.”
  • Charles meets ancient Native Americans. They have many songs, some of which refer to “Lords of snow and rain and water.” This song eventually becomes a prayer: “Lords of blue and Lords of gold, Lords of winds and waters wild, Lords of time that’s growing old.”
  • When speaking of dead spirits struggling to find peace, a Native American asks, “Are the gods of Gwynedd so weak they cannot care for their own?”
  • A man says, “For brothers to wish to kill each other for the sake of power is to anger the gods.”
  • Ritchie, an early North American settler, says, “I cannot find it in me to believe that God enjoys long faces and scowls at merriment.”
  • When his daughter gives birth, Ritchie reads from the Bible. “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”
  • Charles Wallace visits the time period of the Salem Witch Trials, where there is much talk of witches, of good and evil, and of spirits. For example, one boy says, “My father says there are evil spirits abroad, hardening men’s hearts.” The pastor claims a Native American woman is a witch and it is God’s will that she be killed. The Native American woman’s father-in-law uses scripture to defend her, but the townspeople won’t listen.
  • Mrs. O’Keefe’s grandmother said several times that her dead husband is “waiting for me” before she passed away.
  • A man speaks about the Civil War. “Oh God, it was brother against brother, Cain and Abel all over again. And I was turned into Cain. What would God have to do with a nation where brothers can turn against each other with such brutality?” He later says, “There were many nights during the war when God withdrew from our battle fields. When the songs of men fight against each other in hardness of heart, why should God not withdraw? Slavery is evil, God knows, but war is evil, too, evil, evil.”

by Morgan Lynn

Oh, Rats!

Phoenix has always been lucky: he’s the largest in his litter, he has the most lustrous fur, and he’s the most sought-after squirrel in his part of New Jersey. All of this makes him being kidnapped by a hawk seem all the more unlucky.

Luckily, the hawk doesn’t have the best grip; however, he drops Phoenix on a freshly tarred street in downtown Manhattan. Stripped of his gorgeous golden-brown coat, Phoenix now looks like . . . like . . . a common sewer rat! Enormously unlucky!

But his luck changes once again when it isn’t sewer rats that find him, but rather Lucy and Beckett, wharf rats living in an abandoned pier on the Hudson River. Just as Phoenix starts to adjust to city life, the rats discover that humans (an unobservant and furless species) plan to tear down the pier and build a tennis complex. Can Phoenix save his new friends’ home? Or has his luck finally run out?

At first, Phoenix is a vain rat who wants to win Giselle’s attention. As Phoenix is admiring his reflection in a pond, a red-tail hawk grabs him. The hawk eventually drops him over Manhattan. Two rats, Lucy and Beckett, drag Phoenix back to their crate and nurse him back to health. After Phoenix sees his battered reflection, he stops eating in the hopes that he will die. However, he soon is caught up in the plight of the rats, whose home is about to be demolished. The rats decide to sabotage an electrical substation to stop the gentrification of their pier.

The rats’ diverse community has many characters that are interesting and well-developed. Phoenix has to overcome his dislike of rats and learn to appreciate of his own looks. Beckett, a bookish rat, would rather hide in his crate reading than join the other rats swimming. The red-tail hawk adds humor. However, the rats’ world also has several villains that also add interest to the story.

Oh, Rats! has some exciting moments, but the plot drags in many places. The focus on Lucy and Beckett’s alcoholic father seems out of place because his appearance does nothing to advance the plot. Although readers may find the rats’ way of life interesting, readers may struggle with the vocabulary. The story uses difficult vocabulary such as ignominious, appalled, piqued, lugubrious, and curmudgeonly. However, black and white illustrations appear occasionally, which helps break up the text.

Phoenix is a relatable character, who has a mix of good luck and bad luck. In the end, Phoenix realizes that friendship is more important than one’s looks. Even though Phoenix’s story is interesting, many readers will have a difficult time wading through the slow plot and difficult vocabulary. With a vast selection of animal books out there, Oh Rats! may be best left on the library shelf.

 Sexual Content

  • Phoenix has a crush on a squirrel and they brush whiskers. Later, Phoenix thinks, “Giselle! Phoenix hadn’t thought of her in days. He wondered if she’d gone back to the pond from time to time to think about him. It didn’t seem likely. She’d switched from Tyrone to him so easily, she would probably have switched to another squirrel by now. Though she had seemed to like him.”

Violence

  • Tyrone, a squirrel, is electrocuted. Even though his death is not described, Phoenix carries Tyrone on his back so Tyrone can have a proper funeral.
  • A hawk grabs Phoenix. “He was in the clutches of a bird of prey. He tried to wretch himself free, but the bird tightened its grip, and the terrible pain in his shoulder redoubled—a talon was piercing it. The bird’s other claw had a vicelike hold on his hindquarters.”
  • The hawk drops Phoenix, who “finally dropped out of the tree and hit the street, the pavement wasn’t as unforgiving as pavement usually is. This particular crew had just laid down a new layer of hot tar, which was still soft and doughy.” The tar burned Phoenix. “His whole front side was instantly scalded. . . When he leaped to his feet, the tar scalded his footpads.” As Phoenix escaped the tar, dogs chased him. A bird finally helps Phoenix find water.
  • An alley cat chases Lucy and Beckett. Lucy runs into a pipe. “Her less agile brother dove and hit the pipe snout-on. For an instant he saw stars. The stars cleared up just as the alley cat pounced. A claw grazed Beckett’s back, but he darted to the other end of the pipe and squirmed in before the cat could grab him.” Lucy and Beckett hide in the hot pipe until it’s safe to leave.
  • When humans place dynamite by the rats’ home, Mrs. P moved some under the bulldozer. “After lighting both fuses, she dropped the match and waddled away as fast as she could. But the dynamite was only meant for weakening beams, and the blast wasn’t much louder than a car backfiring.”
  • Beckett reads an article about the rats causing the electricity to go out. “The headline was: SUICIDE BOMBER?” When a rat asks what that is, “Beckett squirmed. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last. But of course he knew, and by the aghast look on Lucy’s face he could tell that she did too.”
  • In an electrical substation, Phoenix lights dynamite. “The dynamite exploded just as he stepped onto the balcony. The detonation wasn’t all that powerful. The balcony didn’t tremble under his paws or anything. Nevertheless, he watched one neighborhood after another blink out, till the entire city was dark again.”
  • When a hawk lands by the rats, the rats flee. “In his rush to protect Lucy, Beckett had knocked her over, and they lay tangled on the ground, while their father was pressed flat behind his beer can.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When a construction crew put poison out, four rats eat it and end up dying.
  • In order to gain an inheritance, a rat tries to poison Mrs. P. Mrs. P is given an antidote and doesn’t die.
  • Lucy and Beckett’s father, Mortimer, is an alcoholic. Lucy “loved their father Mortimer, but since the death of their mother he’d taken to drink, which brought out his temper.” When Mortimer comes home, he smells bad. Beckett asks him, “Sucking old beer cans again?”
  • Lucy worries about her father because “once, when he’d staggered home alone after one of his binges, a cab on the West Side Highway had hit his tail, which was why half of it was missing.”
  • Lucy and Becket go to look for her father. “She knew the neighborhood bars on the other side, as well as the alleys behind them where her father liked to drain the dregs from toss-out beer and wine bottles.” As she looked for her father, Lucy saw “a sour-smelling human was passed out in front of the first bar they checked. . .”
  • Beckett isn’t sad that his father isn’t at home because “Mortimer was particularly nasty when he drank.”
  • Lucy and Beckett find their father at a bar. “Mortimer grabbed a paper cup. . . the bartender was filling four mugs with draft beer. He held the mug handles in one hand and left the spigot open as he filled them, some trickles of beer spilled down onto the rubber mat. Or would have, if Mortimer hadn’t been there with his cup. When it was full, he carried it back to his hideaway with great care.”
  • Lucy and Beckett are able to leave the bar because humans are not observant creatures, “especially when guzzling beer and watching baseball.”
  • When the electricity goes out, Mortimer decides to come home. “Indeed, it was Mortimer, rolling an unopened can of New Amsterdam ale in their direction.”

Language

  • Someone asks Phoenix, “What the heck are you doing here?”
  • A construction worker says, “I’ll be darned if I’m going to set the charges.”
  • When humans yell at the construction workers, someone calls them “wackos.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Wicked Saints

The war between gods-fearing Kalyazin and heretical Tranavia has gone on for a hundred years. The war began over differing views on the pantheon of gods that once ruled over the two countries: for Kalyazin, the gods are still meant to be revered and feared, while the Tranavia believe they are nothing more than myths or at the very least demons fooling the silly humans that worship them. While the gods and divine magic reign supreme in Kalyazin, blood magic takes hold of Tranavia.

Nadya Lapteva is the last Kalyazin cleric, the last of her kind able to speak with the gods and use their power. When her home is destroyed by Tranavia’s army, she makes it her mission to turn the tide of war and bring the gods back into the heart of Tranavia. Yet she can’t bring the gods back to a heretical country all on her own. Serefin Melesku, High Prince of Tranavia, may have been the one to destroy Nadya’s home and thrust her into a desperate decision, but he has his own part to play in Tranavia’s future. As a general on the war front, Serefin has become renowned for his magical prowess, highlighting his father’s weak abilities. But once the King calls Serefin home to choose a bride, he knows his father is up to something – something that could very well put him in mortal danger.

As Nadya and Serefin contend with the burdens placed on their shoulders, they get closer and closer to changing the world indefinitely. Magic swirls, monsters come out of the shadows, and neither mage will be able to stop what’s coming to shape the world.

Told from a first-person point of view from Nadya’s and Serefin’s separate journeys, the story explores themes of worship, religious skepticism, and hunger for power. Nadya and her companions are constantly debating whether the gods are worth the effort of worship and whether they’re truly gods. The idea of power revolves around this constant discussion; Nadya and Serefin question where their power comes from and why it’s even needed in the first place.

Both Nadya and Serefin are excellent main characters that carry the bulk of the story. Both are believable and relatable. They make decisions that will cause the reader to root for them during their journeys. The overall plot is full of action. While that action can often get bloody, it’s not overly complicated, and it’s full of discourse about the way religion and magic play into both countries. Religion and magic are tied to each other, and when the final twist of the story is revealed, it leads to a satisfying conclusion.

Kalyazin could be easily seen as a picturesque, pagan Russia with its more rigid religious culture. Tranavia could be viewed as inspired by the Polish warrior spirit that fights for its own power and glory. While the book is recommended for ages 13 and up, some younger readers may be disturbed by the many images of blood, whether that blood comes from violent fights or from the simple fact that mages in Tranavia use their own blood to use their magic. However, readers interested in religion and magic will find that Wicked Saints is a great story from start to finish.

Sexual Content

  • During a battle at the monastery where Nadya grew up, her friend Kostya tries to lead her to safety. Once he does, Kostya “kissed her forehead, lips warm, slipping something cold and metallic against her palm.”
  • Serefin, the High Prince of Tranavia, thinks about the old woman that binds his spellbooks. “He could never figure out if she treated him like a long dead son or lover. He was disturbed he couldn’t tell the difference.”
  • Nadya, the main heroine of the novel, meets Malachiasz, who is a runaway Tranavian soldier. Malachiasz “reached down and took Nadya’s hand, pressing it to his lips as if he were a court nobleman and not a renegade blood mage out in the middle of enemy territory.” Later when the two escape, Nadya notices him more. “He had a soft mouth and his nose was stately. His face was lovely, all the feral, unsettling qualities absent when he wasn’t awake. She wasn’t pleased with herself for noticing, especially not now.” Nadya starts to fall in love with Malachiasz. “Why—after being so furious with him—did she find herself desperately yearning to kiss him?”
  • When Serefin is summoned home from the war front, it’s because of the Rawalyk, which is “the ceremony to choose a royal consort.” As Serefin puts it, “I have to go home and get married.” Later when Serefin is waking from a hangover, his friend Kacper tells him, “You promised Felicíja Krywicka the entire western reaches as a wedding gift.”
  • When Nadya admits her love to Malachiasz, despite it being heresy, they make out. Malachiasz’s “hands gripped her waist as he pulled her closer. He broke away, his breath ragged and hot. His pale eyes were dark and dangerous as they searched her face.”

Violence

  • When Nadya is still at the monastery where she grew up, she thinks, “Cannons were a sound every child of Kalyazin knew intimately. It was what they grew up with, their lullabies mixed with firing in the distance.”
  • Nadya’s home, the monastery, is attacked by Serefin’s army. Nadya fights back with her magic, “[catching a soldier’s] arm, but like a poison, the light blackened his flesh at the point of contact. It spread up his arm to his face, choking his eyes with darkness before he toppled over, dead.” Just after that, Nadya is attacked by another mage. “Flames engulfed her, licking underneath her skin, her blood boiling . . . It was like being burned alive from the inside out.”
  • Serefin thinks about how he got his eyepatch. “The assassins had gone for their eyes first. Perhaps blinding the children of the enemy before murdering them was a religious thing.”
  • When Serefin realizes he must torture a prisoner, he thinks, “It didn’t really matter that he was tired of torturing prisoners, tired of this tour.” Just after that, Serefin uses his magic to kill someone. Serefin “tore a third page out of his spellbook and crumpled it in his hands. Ostyia took a step back as the younger boy fell over, dead.”
  • When Nadya attacks a group of Tranavian soldiers, she kills two of them. “She caught up to one of the figures, stabbing her voryen into his skull just underneath his ear.” Later, when Nadya meets Rashid and Parijahan, two assassins, Nadya says, “We have a clear and obvious reason to be killing Tranavians, in general.” Just moments later, when she meets Malachiasz for the first time, Nadya thinks, “She couldn’t put a name to it, but she knew—intrinsically—he would not hesitate to kill her if she made any indication of hostility.”
  • When Nadya talks to her patron god Marzenya, Marzenya says, “You will dispose of him soon, yes?”
  • When talking to Malachiasz, Nadya asks, “And is your destiny worth the torture and mutilation of a century of innocents to reach the means for your magic? Hundreds upon thousands of people.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Serefin, the High Prince of Tranavia and one of the main characters, regularly drinks whatever alcohol he can get his hands on throughout the novel, like wine and ale.
  • After Serefin’s army takes control of a monastery, Serefin tells his friend Kacper, “Perfect. I want to be blind drunk before the night is out. . . The next morning, Serefin woke with a raging hangover and a prisoner to interrogate.” When Serefin is trying to wake up from another hangover, “He turned back, regretting the motion immediately as the room spun. He pressed a hand to his face, slouching against the doorframe.”
  • When traveling, Serefin, while drunk, tries to avoid meeting a nobleman. “It wasn’t until Serefin was on his fourth—maybe fifth? It was hard to keep track—tankard of dzalustek that the uncomfortable meeting he had been so ardently avoiding finally came into being.”
  • Serefin thinks about his hangovers often. For example, “This was worse than any hangover Serefin had ever experienced. And he always kept track of his hangovers and how badly they hurt. He had a list.”

Language

  • Profanity is sometimes used. Profanity includes hell and damn.
  • When Serefin and his friend Ostyia speak, Ostyia says, “Yeah, and leave me to work my ass off, keeping you safe.”
  • When pushing Serefin back to his bedroom, Ostyia tells him, “Well, welcome home, Your Highness, you don’t have a damn choice.”
  • When Malachiasz leads Nadya through the Tranavian palace, Nadya thinks, “he was leading her farther down into hell, a new level with every door he opened.”

Supernatural

  • Magic is a backdrop to the story, and it’s intertwined with religion. Kalyazin’s magic is divine and only clerics are allowed to use the power directly bestowed to them by the gods.
  • Tranavia has blood magic, where a mage will cut themselves to make their blood flow to then use their blood to conjure their magic through a spellbook.
  • When Nadya is running from Serefin, he attacks her with his magic. “Something brushed Nadya’s ear, heat coming off it in waves. It slammed into the curve of the tunnel before her, bursting into a shower of sparks.”
  • Magic can be used to communicate over long distances. For example, “The king generally sent messages via courier instead of with magic in an effort to mask the disappointing reality that he was a less than impressive blood mage.”
  • Tranavian spells come from spellbooks. Serefin “sighed and nodded, picking up the book and riffling through it. He was running out of spells.” When Malachiasz tells Nadya about his Tranavian magic, he says, “I know what you believe about my magic. It’s easy to spread the rumor that blood mages use human sacrifices.”
  • When Nadya uses her holy magic to blot out the stars in the night sky, her friend Anna says, “We’ll be hearing prophesies about the end of the world for the next twenty years now!”
  • Nadya uses her magic by touching specific prayer beads and praying to the various gods. Nadya “yanked her glove off and thumbed at her necklace until she found Zlatek’s bead. The god of silence loathed granting Nadya power; he’d once voiced they should revoke her magic completely.”
  • Only clerics who speak to the gods can use magic in Kalyazin, Nadya’s homeland. “Using [Nadya’s] power was inevitable, and the minute she did, people would know Kalyazin had clerics again after a thirty-year absence.”
  • In Tranavia, there are people known as Vultures that use so much blood magic they transform into monstrous creatures. “Woven into the darkest of Kalyazin nightmares were the Vultures of Tranavia. Blood mages so twisted by their heretical magic they were no longer human, nothing more than violent monsters.”
  • Nadya and Malachiasz fight a few Vultures. “The blood moved as if it had a life of its own until it formed into the shape of a girl, materializing in the center of the room. Iron spikes wove through an auburn braid. A thick black book hung from straps on her hip. Her face was covered by a crimson mask crafted in strips.”

Spiritual Content

  • Religion is a backdrop to the story and intertwined with magic, and the war between the two main nations of Kalyazin and Tranavia. Basically, Kalyazin still believes in the gods, while Tranavia does not. Dozens of gods are worshipped in Kalyazin.
  • Tranavia is viewed as heretical to most, if not all, devout Kalyazins. “The idea of the High Prince anywhere near the monastery made her shiver. He was rumored to be an extremely powerful blood mage, one of the most terrifying in all of Tranavia, a land rife with heretics.”
  • When the monastery where Nadya used to live is attacked, Nadya notes, “blood magic meant Tranavians. For a century a holy war had raged between Kalyazin and Tranavia. Tranavians didn’t care that their blood magic profaned the gods.”
  • Nadya prays to a wide variety of gods during the novel. For example, “She sent a simple prayer to Bozidarka, the goddess of vision. A vivid image took over her sight.”
  • Another god Nadya prays to is “Horz, the god of the heavens and the stars, who had woken her. Horz had a tendency to be obnoxious but generally left Nadya alone, as a rule.”
  • When a Kalyazin priest tells Serefin off, the High Prince responds, “Yes, yes, we’re nasty heretics that need to be eradicated from the earth and you’re just doing what’s right.”

by Jonathan Planman

Legends of the Sky

Milla has heard the dragon legends. She has seen the dragon murals. But everyone says the dragons who used to rule the skies are gone forever.

Servant girl Milla witnesses a murder and finds herself caring for the last four dragon eggs. She tries to keep the eggs’ existence a secret, but soon, the eggs are in Duke Olvar’s possession. When the dragons hatch, Milla and her friends vow to stay with the dragons and protect them from harm. Milla and her friends try to learn how to care for their dragons, but it soon becomes clear that the dragons must belong to the city, not to the Duke.

Tensions in the city are growing due to Duke Olvar’s dislike of anyone who isn’t a Norlander, like him. The Duke wants to control the city and continues to put restrictions on those of Sartolans descent. In order to protect the Norlanders, the Duke decides that “anyone of Norlander descent got to wear a black dragon badge on their clothes—the Duke’s own symbol. Everyone else had to wear a badge in the shape of a ship, to show they were newly arrived.”

Soon Milla and her friends find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Duke’s soldiers and the Sartolans. How can Milla and her friends keep the dragons safe? Should they join the battle or stay safely tucked away in the Duke’s mansion?

Flanagan builds a complicated island city that is under the Duke’s tight control. As Milla learns more about dragons, she also discovers that the Duke will do anything to bond with one. The Duke wants control of the dragons, so he keeps Milla, her three friends, and the dragons in the dragonhall. While under the Duke’s watchful eyes, Milla’s friendships begin to fracture.

Told from Milla’s point of view, readers will fall in love with Milla and her dragons. Milla is a complex character who struggles to do what is right. Milla struggles with her inability to help her Sartolans friends. Readers will understand Milla’s problems with her friends, her hope for the future, and her desire to keep her dragons safe.

Politics, deadly intrigue, and dragons combine to make a fast-paced story where danger hides in the shadows. The story’s complex plot and the violent conclusion make Legends of the Sky the perfect book for confident readers. With shifting loyalties, new friendships, and the struggle for power, The Legends of the Sky explores the topics of power, discrimination, and friendship. Through Milla’s point of view, the reader will come to understand that discrimination hurts everyone. Legends of the Sky is a beautifully written, action-packed story that will leave readers wanting a dragon of their own.

 Sexual Content

  • Tayra is upset when she finds out that her father has arranged her marriage to Vigo. After she gets to know him, the two are playing when Taya “reached up and kissed Vigo.”

Violence

  • Milla is hiding in a tree when she sees a man killed. “A gloved hand pressed a knife against the cloaked man’s throat. . . His knife dug into the flesh of the man’s neck. A thin trickle of blood ran down the blade. . . Afterward, she [Milla] still saw the sudden spray of scarlet against a terracotta pot. She heard the heavy slump as the body hit the ground.”
  • When the dragon eggs begin to hatch, the duke “lifted the egg, and broke it against the surface of polished wood . . . the egg shattered with a damp crunch. The duke pulled it apart, flicking away pieces of shell with his fingers. He lifted up a limp body streaked with blood. . . The dragon didn’t move.”
  • A woman tells a story about the past when “Rufus murdered his cousin Silvano. . .” The murder is not described.
  • An “idiot” soldier accidently started a fire in the prison. The guards flee without trying to help the prisoners escape. Milla and others try to help the prisoners escape. The prison “was ablaze, sending plumes of smoke and fire shooting high into the night sky. . . There were bodies scattered across the dockside. Some were moving. A few were not. . .Six people had died that night.”
  • When a dragon named Heral flies over the city, a soldier shoots an arrow at it. “One arrow buried itself in Heral’s side. He screamed. A plume of fire shot from his open mouth.” The dragon blows fire towards the soldiers. “Now the archers screamed, arms raised in feeble defense. Milla saw bows burning, arrows torched in midair. A man leapt into the sea, ablaze.” Tayra is able to help her dragon. “Tayra pulled the arrow cleanly from the flank: a shallow wound, but a bloody one.”
  • During an argument, the duke “struck his wife across the face.”
  • A riot breaks out. During the fighting, Milla “almost stepped on a dead soldier. A man in the duke’s livery, on his back, staring sightlessly at the gray sky.” Milla takes a shield from a dead soldier. As Milla tries to reach her friends, “A sword crashed down on her shield with such force that she fell, winded, then rolled to avoid the next blow. . . She struck back, catching the soldier low, in his thigh. She slammed her shield in his face and he fell, lost under feet that danced and stamped and leapt to stay alive.” During the fight, the duchess is killed and Milla is injured. The riot is described over three pages.
  • Milla and her friends try to flee the island. Soldiers try to stop them. When Milla got onto the boat, she heard “the clashing of steel, followed by a scream of pain. She twisted to look. One man lay on the floor. Nestan was upright, clutching his sword arm, dark red blood seeping through his fingers.” Another one of Milla’s friends, Simon, “had his wooden staff that he used to parry and block. With a grunt, he twisted it around and landed a hard blow in the man’s gut with one end. . . Simon slammed the broadside into his chin. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.”
  • The book ends with an epic battle. Tayra “let her arrows fly faster than ever. . .” Tayra, her dragon, and Vigo fight side by side. “They cut through the duke’s forces, leaving a trail of ash and black-clad bodies so that Carlo’s army found their way clear.”
  • During the battle, someone grabs Milla, and “her injured ribs burned in agony. . . Black dots danced before her eyes, and she struggled not to pass out.” Milla is able to get away, and she “grabbed a chair and flung it at Richal Finn, aiming for his sword arm. He stumbled but didn’t fall.” Milla’s dragon used his bulk to pin Richal Finn down. Richal Finn fights back and “he kicked out viciously, catching Iggie square on his leg wound. The wound gaped open, right down to the bone: it gleamed palely through, making Milla feel sick.”
  • The duke grabs his sword and threatens to smash the dragon eggs. Isak “threw his whole body weight at Olvar [the duke] and pushed him aside. Duke Olvar pushed Isak away, sending him staggering backward.” In order to protect her eggs, the dragon “blasted Duke Olivar with a massive stream of fire. Olvar caught the worst of it, but Finn’s clothes also burst into flame. He fell to the floor with a hideous shriek.” The battle is described over 13 pages. The duke dies.
  • The story alludes to the fact that the duke used to hit his wife, Serina. After Serina is injured, Milla “watched his [Serina’s son] work, remembering what Serina had said about all the times her son had tended to her injuries. She didn’t ask how Serina had gotten those inures. She didn’t need to.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • An angry boy yells at his father, “You’re not even a soldier, not anymore. We only have your word that you ever were. You probably hurt your leg falling down drunk outside a tavern.”
  • Milla sees a man on his way to teach fighting skills to a girl. She tells him, “I’ll have a skin of ale cooling in the well for you afterward, shall I?”
  • A girl plans to go to a party. She was “planning to borrow a bottle of sweet Sartolan wine from her parents’ stall for the street party.” Later, the girl tells Milla that the wine helped her make some friends.
  • A woman tells Milla a story from the past, when the dragonriders had a disagreement. A dragonrider named Rufus “laced their evening meal with poison: just enough to send Karys and her cousin Silvano into a deep sleep. They awoke in the dragonhall to find themselves in chains.”
  • When Milla goes to visit a friend, the woman poured them “a small measure of sweet Arcosi wine.”
  • Someone gives Milla gifts, which include wine.
  • When Milla is put in jail, her friends poison the guards. “We baked treats for the guards—a special reward for their hard work. . . they’ll sleep all day, sore head tomorrow. Josi knows her poisons. . .”
  • The duke poisoned a dragon, but “the poison wore off after half a day.” However, when the dragon awoke, she was “in chains.”

Language

  • A soldier calls a group of prisoners “Sartolan scum.”
  • A woman calls recent arrivals “filthy dock rats.” Later someone says, “Dock rats! Throw them into the sea.”
  • When the duke orders soldiers to clear the docks of people, Milla yelled, “Where the hell are you going to clear them to?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The duke talks about the past, when his people fled their home country. He says it had been “Fifty years since our prayers were answered and we found Arcosi waiting for us.”
  • Occasionally, Milla sends out a prayer, but she never mentions a specific god. For example, when she sneaks out of the house, she “sent a prayer out into the pale morning. . .” Later Milla “prayed that Nestan would listen to his daughter now.” Milla prays twelve times throughout the story.
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