Topic: Dragons

Revenge of the Dragon Lady

After killing a fierce dragon named Gorzil, Wiglaf returns to the academy and begins learning more about being a dragon slayer. But soon, a scout appears warning everyone about Seetha, Gorzil’s mother. Seetha wants to avenge her son’s death. Wiglaf isn’t ready to fight an angry dragon, so he searches for help and finds a librarian, a woman who thinks that “clothes make the man,” and finally a wizard who keeps making mistakes while casting spells.

In order to help Wiglaf, a wizard casts a courage spell that makes Wiglaf feel no fear. Wiglaf isn’t afraid to attack the “Mother of all Dragons” (or at least the mother of 3,684 of them). Will Wiglaf’s fearless attitude get him killed?

Revenge of the Dragon Lady brings more silly magic and dragon danger into Wiglaf’s life. The story adds in a fashion-forward woman that really believes the ridiculous new outfit is all Wiglaf needs to slay the dragon. The selfish headmaster also takes a larger role in the story, which is a fun addition to the story. Readers will want to read The New Kid at School first, because Revenge of the Dragon Lady has many of the same characters as the first book in the series.  

Unlike many children’s books, the Dragon Slayers’ Academy doesn’t rely on bullying to create conflict. Instead, the children encourage Wiglaf and try to help him stay alive. The fast-paced story uses humor and suspense to keep readers engaged. Wiglaf is a kind-hearted boy who doesn’t want to use violence—even on a fire-breathing dragon. Instead of having sword fights and death, each dragon dies in an unrealistic, but comical way.

The story uses simple vocabulary and short paragraphs to tell a fast-paced story. Readers may need help with some of the more complex sentences and the medieval language. For example, Wiglaf’s friends tell him to “smite” the dragon, and Wiglaf tells someone to “unhand me.” Full-page black and white illustrations are scattered throughout the story. The detailed illustrations bring the characters to life with exaggerated facial expressions. A map of the academy and a DSA yearbook appear at the end of the book. Each yearbook page has a picture of a character as well as important information about him/her.

Adventure-seeking readers will enjoy Revenge of the Dragon Lady and cheer for Wiglaf as he proves that you don’t need to be mighty in order to be a hero. Readers who want more medieval fun should read the Roland Wright Series by Tony Davis.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • During a food fight in the cafeteria, Wiglaf throws an eel, and “at that very moment, the flesh-and-blood headmaster walked through the dining hall door. . . The eel stuck to Mordred’s forehead. Green eel juice dripped into his angry violet eyes.”
  • Wiglaf and his classmates discuss killing a dragon named Seetha. His friends tell Wiglaf to “Take up your sword. Smite the dragon on the noggin.”
  • The dragon, Seetha, makes fun of Wiglaf, and then, “she made a hacking sound in the back of her throat. Up came a blob of fire. She spit it at the straw dragon. WHOOSH! It burst into flames.” The headmaster tells Seetha, “Go ahead and have fun with the boy. But, please. Try not to set the school on fire.”
  • Wiglaf charges the dragon and “Seetha’s eyes widened with surprise. Then she blew a puff of red-hot dragon breath right at Wiglaf. The blast of smelly heat almost knocked Wiglaf off his feet. Sweat popped out on his brow. But still he ran toward the dragon. With one claw, Seetha knocked the sword out of Wiglaf’s hand. With the other, she struck him. He went rolling head over heels.”
  • Seetha “dangled Wiglaf further over the moat.” Wiglaf dropped his dagger, which falls on Seetha’s toe. Then Seetha “tossed Wiglaf away. He sailed through the air. With a thump, he landed on the ground. He bounced twice. Then he lay still.”
  • Wiglaf hides from Seetha, and when she tries to go get him, “Seetha teetered on the roof above him. . . Her wings flapped clumsily. Her tail lashed the air. She swayed dangerously back and forth. She lost her balance. Down she plunged. SPLASH. Seetha hit the moat.” Later Wiglaf explains that “Seetha died from her secret weakness! It was a bath that killed the beast.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Blazing King Ken’s britches!” is used as an exclamation.

Supernatural

  • The headmaster hears a fluttering noise and thinks it is a bird. He yelped, “A bird of evil omen has come to devour us all!” He realizes that the bird is actually his scout.
  • Wiglaf’s pigs can talk. A wizard “put a spell on her, [so] Daisy could speak Pig Latin.”
  • In order to make a wizard appear, “all Wiglaf had to do was say Zelnoc’s name backwards three times.” Wiglaf said the spell and “suddenly, a tiny bit of smoke appeared. It grew into a smoky, blue pillar. Out of the smoke stepped Zelnoc.”
  • Zelnoc accidentally says a spell that brings the entire wizard convention to a henhouse. He says “Romziz! Romziz! Romziz!” And then “Smoke filled the henhouse. Red smoke. Yellow smoke. Bright purple smoke. The hens sprang from their nest. . . But Wiglaf stood where he was. He watched in amazement as the smoke swirled into great columns. Out of each column stepped a wizard wearing a gown the color of smoke. Some two dozen wizards appeared in all.”
  • A wizard cast a bravery spell on Wiglaf. He chanted, “Spineless, gutless, weak-kneed brat, Chicken-hearted scaredy-cat, cringing coward, yellow-belly, liver-livered, heart of jelly. Change this boy who’s standing here, into He-Who-Knows-No-Fear!” Wiglaf then dashes off to kill a dragon.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Watch that Witch

Princess Pulverizer is desperate to finish her Quest of Kindness so she can finally go to Knight School. The problem is, she’s only halfway through her required number of good deeds. So when a witch offers to make her a knight right away—as long as Princess Pulverizer works for her—it’s a no-brainer. What could go wrong?

Princess Pulverizer is in a hurry to reach her goal. When the evil witch, Elle, offers to make her a knight immediately, Princess Pulverizer is convinced that causing a little mischief isn’t such a big deal. As the princess causes problems for others, the good witch tries to undo Princess Pulverizer’s pranks. Throughout the tale, the princess learns that “being a noble knight is not something you can become overnight. It takes time. And training. . . My father was right. I have a lot to learn.”

Readers will enjoy the story’s characters, which include twin witches, a faithful friend, Dribble the Dragon, and an impatient princess. Readers will relate to the princess’s desire to quickly reach her goal.  Watch that Witch is perfect for readers who are ready for chapter books. The story contains easy vocabulary and short paragraphs. Princess Pulverizer has many funny puns, introduces some new vocabulary, and has a tongue twister. Black-and-white illustrations appear frequently and will help readers picture the events in the story. The illustrations show Princess Pulverizer’s facial expression and her vast emotions in a humorous way.

Watch that Witch has interesting characters, a relatable conflict, and plenty of humor to keep readers interested. Young readers will enjoy the interesting topic and parents will like the positive messages about friendship, working hard, and being nice. The story reinforces the idea that teamwork is important and that “when we work together, no one can stop us.” Watch that Witch will make a fun addition to any child’s reading list. Readers will be eager to pick up the next book in the series, The Dragon’s Tale. Readers interested in knights may also want to try the Roland Wright Series by Tony Davis.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A little boy has a gingerbread cookie, but then a witch shows up and brings the cookie to life. “The child looked surprised as his gingerbread cookie dropped to the ground and began to dance on its own.” The cookie bites the boy’s leg, then “the gingerbread boy ran off down the road.”
  • During a jousting match, “something slammed Princess Pulverizer right in the chest. She felt herself falling and then everything went black.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Lucas left Knight School because some of the boys made fun of him and called him “lily-livered.”
  • Twice, the evil witch calls the princess a “fool.”

Supernatural

  • The princess has a sword of truth that quivers when someone is not telling the truth.
  • The story has two witches, one that is good and one that is evil. One witch “snapped her fingers and pulled a gingerbread cookie seemingly out of thin air.” She gives the cookie to a little boy, then “the woman in the blue gown waved her hand again and magically vanished.”
  • The princess has a magic mace that heals people’s wounds, “but the king also said that if we try to use the mace’s power on someone who is deceitful or evil, its magic will disappear.” When the princess waves the mace over Dribble’s blister, the blister dissolves.
  • The evil witch gives the princess a pin that puts her under a spell. While she wears the pin, the princess must do what the evil witch tells her to do.
  • The princess wears a ruby ring that “gave whoever wore it the ability to move without making a sound.”
  • When the princess begins to talk to the good witch, the princess “felt a piece of cloth fly into her mouth, blocking her words. She tried to pull the gag from her mouth, but already a white rope had magically tied her hands behind her back. Another rope was slithering its way around her legs, binding them so she couldn’t walk. . .a locked cage appeared magically around Princess Pulverizer. She was trapped!”
  • When the princess tries to escape, “she felt her feet lift off the ground. . .The wicked witch was waving her hands in the air. She was the reason the princess was flying in midair.”
  • The princess tricks the evil witch into looking into a magical reflecting pool. “Without thinking, she looked down into the water. A moment later, her fingers curled like a tiger’s claws. Her feet hardened like lead. And her skin turned gray as slate.” The evil witch turns into stone.
  • The princess is given a hand mirror as a gift. The mirror’s “magic is powerful. You can see the future reflected in the glass.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The New Kid at School

Wiglaf, the smallest boy in the family, gets pushed around by his brothers. Then a traveling minstrel tells Wiglaf he was born to be a hero. Wiglaf doesn’t think he will ever do anything heroic. When he reads the Dragon Slayer’s Academy ad posted on the village message tree, Wiglaf and his pet pig head to the academy. Even though Wiglaf can’t stand seeing any creature suffer—not even a fly—he’s convinced he can learn to slay a dragon. His first day at Dragon Slayer’s Academy will be a day he never forgets.

Twelve older brothers love to boss Wiglaf around. Much like Cinderella, Wiglaf must wash the dishes and do a never-ending list of chores. Wiglaf befriends the minstrel, who then teaches him how to read. Despite his small size, Wiglaf is convinced that he can be a hero. The kind, likable Wiglaf isn’t ashamed to be small, poor, or different than others. Instead, he uses his knowledge to defeat the dragon without using his sword, Surekill.

The New Kid at School mixes a little bit of silly magic, a talking pig, and a kind classmate to create a delightful story that makes readers giggle. Wiglaf’s adventure is told with humor while also highlighting the importance of work. This is shown when Wiglaf did not have any money to pay the academy’s tuition, so he offers to wash dishes. Another character empties eel traps in order to stay at the school. The conclusion has several surprises that will have readers eager to pick up the next book in the series, Revenge of the Dragon Lady.

The story uses simple vocabulary and short paragraphs to tell a fast-paced story. Readers may need help with some of the more complex sentences and the medieval language. For example, the dragon slayers are hoping to take the dragon’s “hoards” and Wiglaf is told to go “thitherwald.” Full-page black and white illustrations are scattered throughout the story. The detailed illustrations bring the characters to life with exaggerated facial expressions. A map of the academy and a DSA yearbook appear at the end of the book. Each yearbook page has a picture of a character as well as important information about him/her. Adventure-seeking readers will enjoy The New Kid at School and cheer for Wiglaf as he proves that you don’t need to be mighty in order to be a hero.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A minstrel tells a story about Sir Gilford, who teased a dragon named Old Snart. “Well, Old Snart hated to be teased. He began whimpering and crying until he collapsed in a pool of tears. He hardly noticed when Sir Gilford sliced off his head.”
  • Wiglaf’s mother wants to hurry into town because she “doesn’t want to miss the hanging.”
  • Gorzil, a dragon, takes all of the town’s gold. Then, “he swears to burn Toenail to the ground unless a son and daughter of the village are outside his cave tomorrow. Tomorrow at dawn, in time for breakfast.” After a lottery, two children are sent to become Gorzil’s dinner.
  • Eric and Wiglaf go to Gorzil’s cave. Eric yells, “I am your worst nightmare!” Gorzil becomes angry and “sparks shot from his nose. They scorched the hem of Eric’s dress. Then Gorzil raised the tip of his tail over his head and whacked Eric’s sword out of his hand.”
  • After Wiglaf tells the dragon a series of really bad knock-knock jokes, “Gorzil’s chest heaved. His tail lashed one final time and was still. His tongue flopped out the side of his mouth and lay in a puddle of yellow drool. Then, with a thunderous poof, Gorzil’s body exploded into a cloud of dragon dust.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The headmaster calls a boy a “ninny.” Later, someone calls Wiglaf a “ninny.”
  • Wiglaf’s brother tells a minstrel to “be gone, varlet!”
  • “Blazing King Ken’s britches!” is used as an exclamation.

Supernatural

  • A wizard cast a spell saying, “Oink-a-la, doink-a-la, fee fi fig! This pig shall be a talking pig!” Then the pig speaks in Pig Latin.
  • A wizard gives Wiglaf an enchanted sword called Surekill. When Wiglaf cries for help, the “sword leaped out of Wiglaf’s hand. It glowed red hot as it soared up, up into the air. . . They waited for it to reappear. But the sword had vanished.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Scorch Dragons

After a battle between Ice Wolves and Scorch Dragons, Anders and his twin sister have finally been reunited. But some still doubt that the twins are truly siblings. While the dragons have embraced Rayna, many want the wolves Anders and Lisabeth to leave the mountain stronghold of Drekhelm, because dragons think all wolves are a threat.

For now, Lief, the leader of the dragons, has promised to keep the two wolves safe. But when the wolf pack begins to use the Snowstone, the temperature starts to drop all over Vallen. With the use of the Snowstone, the wolves can weaken the dragons before they attack. Every dragon is in danger. As the dragons debate on the best course of action, Anders and his friends decide they must act in the hopes of bringing peace.

Anders enlists the help of a few new flame-breathing friends to stop the wolves’ plan of attack. Together the group must go on a quest to find the pieces of the Sun Scepter, the only artifact that can counteract the Snowstone. In the search for the Sun Scepter, Anders and his friends will not only have to hunt for clues, but they must also keep the dragons in the dark. The only way to bring peace is to find the Sun Scepter, but keep it out of the dragons’ hands. Can Anders and his friends find the Sun Scepter and use it to stop the wolves? Or will they cause the next great battle?

The second book in the Elemental series still focuses on Anders but adds new, interesting characters. As Anders learns about the dragons’ world, he discovers that the stories of the dragons were not completely true. Instead, the wolves’ stories only focused on facts that portrayed the Ice Wolves in a positive light, and they left out important information that would have helped people understand why the dragons “attacked.” Throughout the story, Anders and his friends learn to put away past misconceptions and work together for the good of all—dragons and wolves.

Scorch Dragons introduces the dragon’s world and gives Anders a new perspective. However, much of the story focuses on Anders and Rayna proving that they are truly siblings and using this knowledge to find the pieces of the Sun Scepter, which has been hidden in four different places. The search lacks suspense due to overly long descriptions of scenery as well as the easy manner in which the pieces are found.

Readers who enjoyed Ice Wolves will already have a connection with the characters and will want to know the outcome. Because of the advanced vocabulary, long descriptions, and a large cast of characters, Scorch Dragons is best suited for strong readers. This character-driven story shows how unlikely friends can work together for the good of all. Although the story ends with an epic battle between the Ice Wolves and the Scorch Dragons, readers will have to work to make it through the slower middle part of the story. Still, fantasy fans will love flying into a book where dragons, wolves, and magic meld in a world of constant danger.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Anders, Rayna, and their friends take the Sun Scepter to Holbard. The dragons try to stop them and throw “pure white dragonfire” at the group. Ander uses the Sun Septer and “a wave of warmth washed over him like a real wave of water, sending all the dragons scrambling to stay steady.” The dragons follow the group into town when suddenly “ice spears were flying up from the walls, along with huge clouds of cold cast by the most powerful of the wolves, and the dragons were staggering, tossed about by the cold wind.”
  • When the wolves use the Snowstone, everything freezes. The cold “reached the harbor, and icy fingers snaked out into the water, freezing the surface solid and squeezing the hulls of the ships until they began to crack with bang Anders could hear even above the city.”
  • During a battle, the Sun Scepter gives of a wave of heat. “A huge crack was opening up right through the middle of Holbart, running straight through the courtyard and outbuildings of Ulfar Academy itself! Stonework crumbled, walls collapsed, and a jagged trench cut the ground in two.”
  • During the battle, Leif tried to protect the students but “a sudden volley of ice spears soared toward Ellukka and Rayna, it was Valerius who threw himself into their path to protect his daughter, roaring his defiance. Ellukka shrieked as a wave of gray cold started at her father’s foreleg, racing along his side. One wing paralyzed, he began to fall, fall, fall toward the ground.” Other dragons come to help Valerius.
  • During the final battle, both Anders and Rayna use icefire. “Flames billowed out, consuming the dragons’ fire and the wolves’ ice, swallowing them whole before they could touch the twins.” The epic battle is described over 20 pages. Most of the destruction happens to buildings, and injuries are not described.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Leif wants to see if Rayne and Anders are truly siblings. He brings a purse to Anders and tells him the purse “will bond to the next person who touches it. . . It will require just the smallest drop of blood. Artifacts linked to family often do, among others. The blood of the most powerful wolves and dragon can achieve a great deal.” After Anders puts blood on the clasp, the purse will only open to those who are related to him. As Rayna takes the purse, Leif tells her, “If it doesn’t recognize you, it will scream an alarm. If it opens, that’s all we need to know.”
  • One of the characters in Ice Wolves explains how Elementals change. “Essence is the magic that’s found all around us. In nature, in the earth itself. When we transform from human to wolf, we channel it instinctively so we can make the change…Elementals always have gifts linked to nature, because nature is where we find the essence that gives us our power.”
  • In the past, dragons and wolves crafted magical objects with runes. Many of the objects are magical and the “runes are what channeled the essence—the power that came from nature, from the earth itself—into artifacts.”
  • Anders discovers that he can create icefire—blue-and-silver fire. When he uses the fire, “the white fire and the ice spear both vanished into nothing as they connected with his blue-and-silver flames.”
  • Anders and Rayna’s mother was rumored to have a thunder lion as a father. Thunder lions “are elementals who control the wind and air.”
  • One of the wolves has a mirror that “allows two-way communication.”
  • Anders and Rayne are given a map that used to be their mother’s. When Rayna puts blood on the compass of the map, “the beautifully drawn border was writing, changing, rearranging itself.” The map makes letters, which give them a clue to find the Sun Scepter, which can change the weather.
  • The wolves use the Snowstone to make the weather colder, which weakens the dragons’ power.
  • When Anders, Rayna, and their friends get to Cloudhaven, they are able to enter the building by using pins with runes on them. When they enter, Anders tells Cloudhaven what they are looking for “and then, just as it had before, the glow out in the hallway faded. When it returned a moment later, the path of runes led down the stairs again. . . the new glowing path led an entirely new direction.” Cloudhaven lights a path showing Anders and Rayna where they need to go.
  • Anders and Rayna are given two pendants. When Anders placed a pendant onto Rayna’s dragon form, “the necklace simply melted into her skin, vanishing, perhaps to the same place her clothes and the contents of her pockets had gone when she transformed.”

Spark

In Algorria, storm beasts and their guardians create perfect weather every day, bringing prosperity and peace to Algorria. Twelve-year-old Mina has been carefully tending a storm beast egg, and is eager for the egg to hatch. Everyone is surprised when a lightning beast hatches from Mina’s egg. Mina’s family thinks that their quiet, shy daughter should not be paired up with a lightning beast, a creature of fire and chaos.

Unlike her family, Mina is sure that she, her storm beast, and Pixit are perfect for each other. Mina and Pixit are enrolled in lightning school and begin to learn the skills of lightning guardians. Even though Mina has always dreamed of completing daring acts, she struggles at school. She is unable to learn the basic skills and often feels as if she doesn’t fit in anywhere.

When Mina accidentally learns that Alorria’s perfect weather comes at a devastating cost, she discovers that powerful people are willing to do anything to hide the truth. Mina has never been able to speak out, but now without her help people will die. Mina and Pixit both dream of being like storybook heroes that change the world for the better. Is there any way that Mina can find her voice?

Readers will pick up Spark because of the beautiful cover of a storm beast, but they will keep turning the pages until the very end because of the beautiful relationship between Mina and Pixit. Anyone who has been afraid to speak up will relate to Mina, who is happy to let others take over the conversation. Yet within the quiet girl’s heart is the dream of making a positive impact in the world. Mina often struggles with feelings of insecurity, but with Pixit’s help Mina learns that being “different isn’t wrong.” In order to help others, Mina does not need to change herself. Instead, she only needs to use her own unique talents.

This engaging story uses a unique setting to bring modern-day problems to the forefront. As part of Mina’s studies, she is introduced to the idea of isolationism which is explained as follows: “Isolationism—defined as caring only about your own country—had the benefit of limiting the area that the early storm beast and guardians had to protect. Here’s the important bit to understand: all the world’s weather is connected, and more complex than you can comprehend.”

As Mina learns more about her country, she gets a lesson in false propaganda and how the political leaders are willing to suppress the truth because they fear change. However, the message is clear: “you can’t dismiss the facts just because you don’t like where they lead.” Even though Mina is quiet, she finds a way to become a leader. However, becoming a leader was not an easy choice for Mina. Her self-doubt and worry come through because Pixit can hear Mina’s thoughts. The relationship between Mina and her storm beast is so endearing that it will leave readers wishing they had a storm beast of their own.

Not only is Spark an exceptional story, but it also teaches readers that it is possible to change the world for the better. By the end of the story, Mina and Pixit feel like friends who have made a positive impact on you. Spark is an unforgettable story that will resonate with children and leave them wanting to be kinder, better people who do good in the world.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A fight broke out in the school’s dining hall. A student “launched herself across the tables, and dozens of her friends joined her. . . dozens of other students threw themselves into the battle. . . Mina, unable to run, unable to move, stared as students and beasts fought in front of her, over the tables, and up on the metal ladders, chains, and other obstacles.” Pixit joins the fight, and Mina “felt pain shoot through her arm as another beast bit into him.” Some students began throwing potatoes. A teacher breaks up the fight, which lasts for two pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • One of the students tells Min, “Mina, tell him he’s an idiot. He doesn’t believe me when I say it.”

Supernatural

  • Storm beasts and their guardians create perfect weather every day. Wind beasts blow the clouds away, sun beasts produce balmy temperatures, rain beasts water the crops, and so on.
  • When a person is chosen to care for a storm beast’s egg, the person must spend time each day with skin-to-egg contact. When the egg hatches, the person and the storm beast are linked. Mina’s brother “Gaton had told her what it felt like to be linked mind-to-mind to a storm beast: he couldn’t hear all of Arde’s thoughts the way he heard his own, and Arde couldn’t always hear his, but he could always feel Arde’s emotions like a constant hum in the back of his mind. . . And when he wanted to talk to Arde, all he had to do was concentrate on both the words and his beast. It was like shouting. But quietly.”
  • Mina and Pixit can feel each other’s emotions. For example, when Mina and Pixit were about to fly into a storm, Mina “felt Pixit’s nervousness, like bubbles in her veins.”
  • Lightning beasts can store lightning, and the guardians can then discharge the lightning’s energy. During a storm, Mina “rose in her seat, and she reached her arms up, hands high over her head, fingers spread. . . Roaring, Pixit flew into the lightning. Mina felt it hit her fingers and rattle down her arms. She brought her hands together, holding the lightning steady above her. . . Mina opened her hands and released the electricity. Some of it spread through the air and slammed down, harmlessly, on the blackened hills below. But most of the energy was absorbed into Pixit, causing him to glow an even more brilliant yellow.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Knight Who Took All Day

The Knight wants to impress the golden-haired princess. He wants to show the princess his skill with a shield and a sword. The Knight searches for a dragon, but doesn’t find one. When a dragon suddenly appears in the village breathing fire, the knight is worried more about his appearance than slaying the dragon. The Knight sends his squire up and down the stairs, getting his fashionable armor. The princess takes matters into her own hands, but will she be able to conquer the dragon?

The illustrations show the dragon in and around the village in soft water-colored illustrations, which do not portray the dragon’s destruction in a scary manner. The princess is in many of the illustrations, but because the illustrations are busy, readers may miss the princess’s reaction to the knight, which is important to the knight. Parents may want to make a game out of finding the princess and talking about her facial expressions. Although the illustrations are interesting and engaging, the character’s lack diversity and the two main characters—the squire and the princess—are blonde.

The Knight Who Took All Day is a cautionary tale that highlights the danger of pride and showing off. The Knight is more concerned with having the perfect outfit than saving the town from destruction. The story may lead to a great discussion on gender roles and stereotypes. In the end, the princess finds a way to tame the dragon. The blond-haired beauty marries the squire and lives happily ever after. In the end, the princess shows her bravery and doesn’t have to rely on someone else to save her.

The story’s text has repetition and different types of font to highlight important words and add interest to the page. Even though The Knight Who Took All Day is a picture book, the story will need to be read aloud, because the text is too difficult for a child to read independently. The Knight Who Took All Day takes a humorous, unique look at the traditional fairy tale that is best suited for those who are interested in knights, dragons, and princesses.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A dragon “rampaged across farms, scattering cows and sheep.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The knight calls his squire a fool.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

A Friend for Dragon

At the beginning of the story, Dragon is looking for a friend. When an apple falls from a tree, landing on the lonely dragon, a snake decides to play a trick on Dragon. The snake makes Dragon believe that the apple can talk, but when Dragon takes the apple home, the apple stops talking. The apple’s silence worries dragon who takes him to the doctor. The doctor eats the apple, leaving behind a core that soon rots. Dragon must bury his friend, who he misses deeply. But in the spring, dragon goes for a walk and finds a new apple to be friends with.

Written using simple sentences, with easy vocabulary, A Friend for Dragon is perfect for those transitioning to chapter books. Seven or fewer sentences appear on every page, and every page has colorful pictures that will help readers visualize the plot and bring Dragon’s friendship with the apple into sharp focus. Dragon tells his friend stories, jokes, and even makes him a midnight snack. Dragon also talks about the qualities that make a good friend.

Readers may find A Friend for Dragon entertaining or heartbreaking depending on their unique personalities and experiences. Some readers may think that the snake’s joke is funny because obviously, an apple would not make a good friend. But other readers may walk away saddened by the snake’s joke, especially because Dragon is so lonely. The snake’s joke is never revealed and in the end, Dragon finds a new apple to take his friend’s place. Dragon deeply mourns the loss of the apple and even buries him. An illustration shows Dragon grieving over the apple’s tombstone.

While Dragon is a lovable character, some may find A Friend for Dragon upsetting. Dragon demonstrates the qualities of a true friend, as well as highlights the fact that it is okay to mourn the loss of a friend. The story definitely brings up topics that parents should discuss with their children. A Friend for Dragon has an easy-to-understand plot that many readers will find enjoyable, while others may become saddened by Dragon’s experiences.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

When Dragons are Dreaming

The little dragon can’t sleep, and he wants to play with the fairies he can see flying through the sky. But the fairies don’t want to play with a dragon. When the little dragon finds a fairy caught in a spider’s web, can he show her that dragons aren’t that scary after all?

Written in beautiful rhymes, When Dragons are Dreaming has beautiful full-colored pictures that will delight little readers. The story has a simple plot that focuses on the little dragon’s desire to have a friend. The little dragon and the fairy fly through the night, showing readers that you don’t have to be the same in order to be friends.

Even though When Dragons are Dreaming is a picture book, the story is intended to be read aloud to a child, rather than for the child to read it for the first time independently. Each page contains 1-2 rhyming sentences, which make this a perfect bedtime story. Younger readers will want to snuggle up and have their parents re-read When Dragons are Dreaming over and over again because of the adorably cute illustrations that will fill their dreams with dragons and fairies.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Rise of the Dragons

Joss and Allie have always feared the Raptors and the wave of death caused by the vicious beast. When Joss finds a dragon egg, he never imagined the love he could feel for the Silver dragon or the danger the dragon would bring into his life.

The Lennix’s are a cruel and power-hungry family who wish to rule over all dragons and humans. They have trained their Raptors to follow commands and prey on unsuspecting humans. But some of the raptors are questioning the Lennix’s rule. They are convinced that possessing the Silver dragon is the key to their continuing rule.

Sirin lives in the Lost Lands, where dragons no longer live. Most people have forgotten the dragons and no longer believe they existed at all, but Sirin hopes that she will one day meet a dragon. While Sirin dreams of dragons, her real life is full of grief. When her mom is hospitalized, Sirin is forced to live with several different families. Sirin wonders if her life will be filled with grief forever.

Rise of the Dragons weaves together three stories—Joss and Allie, the Lennix family, and Sirin—and eventually ties the stories together. Most of the story focuses on Joss and Allie, the indentured servants who find the Silver’s egg. When the Lennix family tricks Joss and Allie into going to their compound, life only gets worse for the siblings. Readers will be engrossed in the unique, but cruel, dragon world.

Even though the reader knows that Sirin’s story will eventually connect to Joss and Allie’s story, readers may have a hard time connecting with Sirin’s story, which is realistic fiction. The chapters about Sirin pop in at unexpected places and slow down the plot. The conclusion brings Sirin and a dragon together in a fun, unexpected way and clearly sets up a sequel.

The story contains detailed, concise descriptions, as well as short chapters that often focus on one character. However, some readers may struggle with the difficult vocabulary, such as “ensconced,” “undulating,” “lugubriously,” “cantilevered,” and “soporific.” Rise of the Dragons may best suit middle school readers because younger readers may be frightened by the raptors’ cruelty; several of the characters’ parents are killed by raptors, and the characters are then enslaved by the Lennix family.

Sage creates an interesting dragon world, where death and violence are everyday occurrences. Although the characters are not well developed, the story has enough action and suspense to keep the pages turning. Rise of the Dragons has plot twists, truly evil villains, and a protagonist with whom readers will sympathize.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Joss thinks about his parents, who died when raptors “dived onto his mother and father, and the shine of their sharpened talons, curved and lethal, as they emerged from their sheaths for the kill.” Later Joss again thinks about his parents and how “they had been attempting to escape a Lennix roundup, and it hadn’t worked. He remembered Raptors diving down, taking his parents hundreds of feet up into the sky, and then dropping them into the sea.”
  • When Joss is riding his dragon, Lysander, they are chased by a group of dragons. As Joss and Lysander try to flee, “Joss felt a burst of heat as a spume of dragonfire hit Lysander’s tail. The flames fell away from Lysander’s silver scales like water from oiled feathers, but the shock of it caused him to shoot rapidly forward. . .” Joss and Lysander fly through a portal and are safe.
  • Lysander frightens a flock of sheep, and they run into an old quarry. Joss tells his sister about how he “climbed down into the quarry and they were piled up. Dead on the quarry floor. Well, they weren’t all dead. Some were injured and bleating. So . . . so I had to hit them on the head. To put them out of their pain. It was. . . Oh, it was horrible.”
  • When Joss trips, D’Mara “Grabbed Joss’s arm and pulled him roughly to his feet, gripping him so hard he could feel her nails digging into skin.” When Joss and Allie try to run, D’Mara “threw herself at Joss and caught his neck in an armlock. Allie hurled herself at the traveler, but a well-aimed kick sent her sprawling to the ground. . . The traveler jerked her arm hard against Joss’s throat, making him gasp for breath.” Armed guards appear and they shoved the sack over Lysander’s head. “At once he lay down upon the ground in defeat. . .They pulled her (Allie) arms behind her back and roughly tied her hands, then threw a net over her and wrapped her up so tightly that she could hardly breathe. Allie began to gasp in panic. . . As Allie took a shuddering gulp of air, Tamara kicked the back of her knees and Allie fell to the ground.” Joss is also tied up, and the two were taken to Fortress Lennix to be prisoners.
  • When Sirin and Ellie are walking home from school, some girls bully them, telling them they must pay a toll to pass. One girl grabs Sirin by the collar. Later, the same girls corner Sirin and her foster mother, Mandy. Mandy tries to help, but “Mandy looked down and saw the point of a jagged knife pressing into her all too thin cardigan. . . but the pressure of the knife point reminded her to keep quiet.” One of the girls “pulled out a knife, drawing the tip of the blade across Sirin’s stomach.”
  • The Lennix twins take Allie to a notoriously violent raptor and have her thrown into his room. They giggle as they hear the dragon roar and they assume Allie is being eaten. However, the dragon does not injure Allie.
  • When the Lennix’s catch a Green dragon, the other dragons punish the Green. “Bellacurx sent a short burst of flame flickering across the ground, so that they curled around the delicate feet of the Green and sent her hopping from one foot to another—much to the amusement of the other Raptors. . . In a sudden movement, the red dragon brought her wings down in such a way that their sharpened barbs gouged deep grooves through the scales of the Green and tore into her wings.” The Green is then imprisoned.
  • The Lennix’s raptors go on a raid, attacking the Greens and “demolished their nest.” D’Mara’s husband tells the raptors, “The free Greens are finished. But the Reds, Yellows, and Blues remain . . . Raptors, tonight we shall go in for the kill. We go to the Islands of the Blues where they hold their eggs deep in caves beneath the ocean. From them we shall take a tribute: a living infant that we shall tear to shreds before their eyes, and then we shall leave them in grief. We shall return again and again and again until the Blues show us their hiding places of their clutches and beg us to take them.”
  • The epic battle between the Lennix’s raptors and other dragons takes place over three chapters. During the fight, “Wave after wave of firestiks rained down from Flight Vengeance. Bellacrux and Lysander ducked and dived. . . And then a firestik found its mark—on Lysander’s left wing tip. Lysander pitched to one side and sent the weapon bouncing off his armored silver scales. The sudden lurch sent Joss sliding out from the rider’s dip.” Joss is able to rebalance, and the fight continues. One aggressive raptor named Valkea goes after Bellacrux. “Valkea let loose a long, focused spume of fire. It caught the tip of Bellacrux’s tail but did little damage, for the tail-thrashing doused the flames and the burn alerted Bellacrux to her pursuer . . . Bellacrux sent a long, thin steam of brilliant orange flame straight into Valkea’s face. The Red wheeled backward and the flames shot down the soft and vulnerable front of her neck. . . In agony from the burn, she thrashed her neck to and fro, trying to cool the burn. . .” During the battle, one dragon is injured when someone throws a firestik, and the raptor’s “tail exploded into flames,” causing the raptor to fall to his death.
  • When a burning raptor falls to his death, he hits a dragon’s wing. When the raptor’s tail hits the dragon, “there was a snap like a pistol shot, and suddenly her wing was hanging down, useless. Herlenna screamed. . . She keeled over to one side, and with a crashing and cracking of branches, she disappeared through the canopy of trees like a drowning swimmer beneath the waves. Lysander and Joss heard a deep thud, and then all was silent.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • D’Mara calls her husband a “spineless little liar” and “slick of dragon slime.”
  • D’Mara calls a dragon an “idiot.” Later she calls Joss an “idiot.” Several other characters also call someone an “idiot.”
  • Kaan calls his brother a “dumbo” and then tells him, “Oh, go boil your stupid fat head.”
  • D’Mara tells her husband, “And I always thought that Lock of yours was a bit of a bonehead.”
  • A girl tells Sirin’s foster mom, “Bleedin’ Nora, you’re effing crazy, you are.”

Supernatural

  • Humans can lock with dragons. “Some people were lucky enough to become so close to a dragon that they stayed together for life. They even understood each other’s thoughts.” Once a dragon and human have locked, they can communicate through thought.
  • A silver dragon is able to travel through a portal to the Lost Lands. “All Silvers can travel through the invisible portals that link our two worlds. And if a Silver touches its tail to another dragon, they can both go through. Indeed, you can have a whole chain of dragons going through.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Basque Dragon

As members of the Unicorn Rescue Society, Elliot and Uchenna know that mythical creatures exist. But Elliot’s unprepared for the strange events he encounters. As he leaves for school, Elliot finds a mysterious package on his front step. He opens the package and finds a book called The Country of Basque. When Elliot gets to school, he meets up with Uchenna. Professor Fauna approaches them—he needs their help.

Soon, the two friends are whisked away in Professor Fauna’s plane and heading across the ocean to the mountains of the Basque Country. The members of the Unicorn Rescue Society must find and save a missing dragon. Can the group track down the kidnapped dragon? And if they find the dragon, how will they stay alive long enough to save it?

An action-packed fantasy, The Basque Dragon is full of adventure, mystery, and humor. Elliot and Uchenna show how two people who are completely different can still be friends. Elliot would rather read about mythical animals than meet them. His fearful nature is a fun contrast to Uchenna’s adventurous, courageous spirit. Uchenna is not portrayed as a stereotypical girl; she is capable, strong, and smart.

The Basque Dragon gives some history of the Basque people and uses some Basque words. The story explains how to pronounce the Basque language by giving pronunciation guides. For example, the Basque people are called, the Euskaldunak—AY-oo-SKAL-doo-nak.

In order to enjoy the story, readers will have to suspend their disbelief. There are several events that are unrealistic. For example, the professor parks his beat-up single-prop plane in the school parking lot. The group flies across the Atlantic in the beat-up plane, which the professor does not know how to land. Despite the professor’s lack of skills, the group still makes it safely to the desired location. Another unrealistic event is that even though the group leaves New Jersey after school, Elliot and Uchenna are still able to make it home in time for dinner.

One disturbing aspect of the story is that Elliot and Uchenna go to Europe with Professor Fauna, even though they don’t trust him. To make matters worse, they lie to their parents and say they were at school participating in a club—the Worm Nutrition Club.

The second installment of The Unicorn Rescue Society can be read as a stand-alone book; however, readers will enjoy the book more if they read The Creature of the Pines first. The Basque Dragon will keep younger readers entertained with its rapid pace, humorous tone, and diverse characters. Black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout the book; the illustrations add humor as well as help readers visualize the characters. Most of the text is easy to read because it uses short paragraphs, simple vocabulary, and dialogue. However, adding the Basque language makes reading parts of the story laborious. Even though the evil villain is predictable and some of the events are unrealistic, The Basque Dragon will entertain readers while exploring the difference between independence and isolation.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When the group lands in Basque, someone shoots at them. “Pop! Pop! Pop. . . They threw themselves to the ground.” The shooting stops when the professor stands up and says, “You have succeeded, whoever you are! We are afraid!”
  • The kids are told an old story. A dragon killed a knight and captured a noblewoman. When the Knight’s squire tells the swordsmith that the blade he made broke, the swordsmith goes to free the woman. When the swordsmith finds the dragon, “A roar of flame enveloped Teodosio. He fell to the ground, fire covering his body. . .” The swordsmith and the noblewoman are able to escape.
  • During World War II, Nazis dropped bombs on the dragon. “. . . Another wave of bombs fell. The ground trembled. The great herensuge fell to the ground.” A man led the dragon to a safe cave.
  • In a fit of anger, Professor Fauna smashes the plastic membership cards for The Unicorn Rescue Society. Professor Fauna “brought the rock down again and again, breaking the plastic cards to pieces, not seeming to notice that he was also smashing the buttons and switches. Dials started going crazy, whirring and spinning. . . A groaning came from the walls of the cavern and then the sound of an explosion. . .” The cave begins to crash around the group, but no one is injured.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • One of the characters says “darn it.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • In the Basque Country, there are stories of a “dragon with seven heads: Sugaar, the god of the storms.”
  • A dragon’s saliva is “marvelously powerful” and will heal wounds.

 

 

 

 

Dragons in a Bag

Jaxon’s mom leaves the nine-year-old with Ma, so she can look after him. While there, Jax is intrigued by a moving package. Ma reveals that she is a witch, and she has the duty to deliver three baby dragons to a parallel realm where magic still exists. Jax joins Ma on her journey, but when the transporter takes them to the Mesozoic era, Ma quickly sends Jax and the dragons back to Brooklyn. Jax is determined to keep the dragons safe until he can find Ma. Will Jax be able to protect the dragons and find Ma in another dimension?

Dragon in a Bag contains a cast of diverse characters, including an invisible man, a witch, a squirrel, and Jax’s friend from school. Black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout the book and help the reader visualize the characters. When Jax is sent back to Brooklyn, he is forced to ask for help from adults who are strangers. Even though the adults in the story make some life decisions that others do not agree with, the adults’ decisions are not criticized or shown in a negative light.

The children in the story are able to share their knowledge about different subjects, and Jax clearly loves geography. The story teaches about animal imprinting and information about the Mesozoic era. Jax briefly enters the Mesozoic era; however, Jax’s visit is so short that the reader will be disappointed with the lack of dinosaur action.

Much of the story focuses on the interpersonal relationships between the adults; they all have different views of magic and what should be done with the dragons. This allows the reader to see different people’s perspectives and shows how people can have different views without being wrong. Even though the dragons are a main part of the plot, they stay in Ma’s purse for the majority of the story. Readers who pick up the story with the hopes of seeing some dragon action will be disappointed. In the end, Dragons in a Bag is an interesting story, but younger readers will struggle to stay engaged because the story lacks action.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A squirrel comes into the house and Ma hits it with a cane. The squirrel “jumps out of the way just in time, and Ma’s cane crashes the metal breadbox instead.”
  • When a dinosaur attacks Ma, she “grabbed hold of that funny flap and swung around onto its back. Of course, that was after I’d zapped it a couple of times with my cane . . . then I used a mild enchantment to make it more manageable.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ma serves Jax a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asks, “You need a beer to wash that down. Why don’t you grab a bottle from the fridge?” Later Jax realizes she was talking about root beer.

Language

  • Ma tells Jax, “go sit your butt down on that sofa and read your darn book.”

Supernatural

  • Ma is a witch, who has three dragons she is supposed to take to another dimension where magic exists. She tells Jax, “Parallel realms exist in different dimensions. Time travel is like whizzing down a slide. Crossing dimensions is more like skipping double Dutch.”
  • A transporter reads a person’s intentions and sends them to a different time period or dimension. Ma and Jax travel to the time of dinosaurs and then to a dimension where there are supercontinents.
  • One of the characters can breathe fire.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

The Creature of the Pines

Elliot isn’t excited about starting a new school three weeks after the school year began. To make matters worse, his class is going on a field trip to the Pine Barrens, a potentially dangerous, creepy forest. The field trip is being led by Professor Fauna, a strange man who is rumored to be unhinged from reality.

Uchenna is the only person who will talk to Elliot. Unlike Elliot, she is adventurous and fearless. When Uchenna goes into the forbidden forest, will Elliot be brave enough to follow? When the two meet a Creature of the Pines, will the two survive?

Right from the start, Elliot and the other characters jump off the pages. The frightening Professor Fauna adds mystery, possible danger, and suspense. The diverse, interesting characters will pull the reader into this fast-paced mystery. The vivid descriptions and well-developed characters join together to create a suspenseful mystery that readers will not want to put down. Elliot, a fearful boy who has the tendency to overthink situations and Uchenna, an adventurous, fearless girl, make a fun pair as they join together to help a Jersey Devil that they find in the woods.

The Creature of the Pines has adventure, danger, and a mythical creature with magical powers. Black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout the book; the illustrations add humor as well as help readers visualize the characters. The text is easy to read because it uses short paragraphs, simple vocabulary, and dialogue. Although the creature makes an exciting appearance, more information about the interesting creature could have been incorporated into the story. The Creature of the Pines will delight readers who are interested in a character-driven adventure.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While trying to find the Jersey Devil, Elliot and Uchenna go into someone’s greenhouse. “Phipps, the butler, had crept around them, and at that instant, he grabbed Elliot’s arms.” The Jersey Devil jumps onto the butler’s face and Uchenna “spun and punched Phipps in the stomach. She was only a kid, so she couldn’t punch very hard. But she did double Phipps over.” The kids are able to escape.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • One of the characters said, “You’re darn right!”

Supernatural

  • According to a family’s legend, Beulah (a distant relative) had twelve children. After she delivered child number twelve, she told someone, “I won’t be having any more children. I’d rather have the devil than have another child.” When she gave birth to the next child, the “baby wasn’t a baby at all. It was a strange creature, and it went screeching out of Beulah’s arms and straight through the window, leaving shattered glass all over. . . Ever since then, the Jersey Devil roams these pines.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Winging it

It’s tough enough being the only girl dragon shifter, but when Zoe is forbidden to tell her best friend, Meagan, about her powers, Zoe realizes that living in two worlds is complicated. When Meagan begins to question Zoe’s friendship, tensions heat up.

When Zoe’s father grounds her, her mother leaves her father, and Meagan makes a new friend, Zoe doesn’t think things can get worse. Then she discovers that the Mages have laid a trap to destroy the shape shifters. Zoe must find a way to help her friend Meagan as well as save the dragon shifters without revealing any dragon secrets.

Winging It begins building suspense from the first page and will keep the reader interested until the last battle. Teens can relate to Zoe because she is smart, strong, and truly cares for others. Like any other teen, Zoe isn’t always sure of herself, but she always strives to do what is right, even if that means keeping secrets from her parents and her best friend Meagan.

The second book of The Dragon Diaries brings in interesting new characters—Derek, a shape shifting wolf, Jessica, a shape shifting jaguar, as well as Sigmund, Zoe’s dead brother. Sigmund brings a bit of humor to the story because even though he’s dead, he likes to tease Zoe as well as help her. Zoe spends more time in the supernatural world in Winging It, however, the setting is clearly fantasy and does not resemble real life in any way. The only down side of the book is the frequent and colorful profanity.

Sexual Content

  • Zoe has a crush on a twenty year old man. Her father tells her, “You are thinking of love and romance. Jared is thinking of now, he is thinking of sex, and he almost certainly does not have your welfare at the forefront of his thoughts.”
  • One of the characters said that a boy, “seems to think that love, romance, and sex are the same thing.”
  • Jared kisses Zoe. “That barest touch filled me with yearning and made me shiver. My heart was thundering, doing that crazy thing of matching its beat to his. Our noses were almost touching, his hands framing my face and I didn’t want to step away from him. Ever.”
  • One of the character’s said that he’s dating a girl, but, “It’s no big deal.” His friend thinks they are dating for the sex.
  • One of the characters kisses her boyfriend “with enthusiasm.”
  • At the end of the book Zoe kisses a boy. “It was sweet and lingering, and an entirely different kind of kiss than I’d had with Jared. Our lips clung a bit and I bumped his nose with mine when I stepped back.”

Violence

  • Meagan is attacked in the school bathroom. Suzanne punches her and breaks her glasses. Zoe turns into a dragon and the girls flee.
  • Kohana and Zoe shape shift and fight. When Kohana throws a thunder bold at Jared, Zoe stops it by throwing herself in its path.
  • At a party, the Mages attack Zoe and her friends with a spell. Zoe slams two Mages’ heads together and knocks them out. One of the shapeshifters, Jessica, is trapped. “I could see Jessica’s limp form on the floor, her shadow in tatters and her body motionless, the golden swirl of spell light illuminant.”
  • The Mages trap Zoe and her friends in a drainage pipe and use a spell to try to drown the group.
  • There is a fight between Kohana and Zoe’s friends. Derek is hit by a lightning bolt. Zoe rips out some of Kohana’s feathers because, “there was power in the feathers.” The fighting ends when Kohana and Zoe transport to the dream world.
  • The Mages plan to sacrifice someone during a ceremony. The fight scene that follows goes on for several pages. During the fight, the ghosts of all Wyverns past appear and Zoe sees where the past Wyverns made a mistake which caused the current situation. During the fight, Kohana “tackled the woman and she screamed as she fell. I saw that he had ripped out her eyes with his claws, then left her writhing in anguish and bleeding in the snow.” The fight ends when Zoe goes into the Mage’s memories and uses her dragon fire to destroy them.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • After the dragon broke up a fight in the school bathroom, some of the kids are debating if Suzanne was “smoking something.” They also refer to a “toke.”
  • Zoe and her friends go to a party where there is alcohol, “pot, incense, and cigarettes.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the book. The profanity includes: bullshit, damn, ass, crap, holy frick, hell, fuck, piss, bitch, shit, and holy shit.
  • When Zoe upsets her friend, she thinks, “Meagan is not a bitch—that I made her sound that way said more about me than her.”
  • Later in another fight with her father, Zoe yells, “You should give us the chance to not fuck up our lives by trying to make your stories come true.”
  • Zoe calls the girl who attacked Meagan an “uber-bitch.”
  • When Suzanne’s boyfriend breaks up with her, she said, “Trevor just dumped me for that slut.”

Supernatural

  • The Mages want to eliminate all shape shifters in order to gain the others’ power. Mages can also gain power by consuming other people’s spells. “Mages recruit humans with an innate musical ability. This power—called spellsinging—allows those gifted humans to enchant other humans with their music or their songs.”
  • One of the characters can read minds as well as cast spells.
  • The dragon shapeshifters can beguile others. “Beguiling is kind of like hypnosis and it’s a dragon trick . . . We conjure flames in our eyes; the humans look closer; we make suggestions.”
  • Zoe’s father uses dragonsmoke as a protective barrier. “Humans can cross easily, but a dragon can cross the dragonsmoke of another with only explicit permission.” Zoe’s father uses it to ground Zoe and makes sure she doesn’t leave the house.
  • In her dream, Zoe sees the Wyrd sisters who give her clues on how to defeat the Mages.
  • Meagan mentions her mom’s visionary sessions, and later in the book her mother said she will do a visioning for Zoe’s mother.
  • Kohana, another shapeshifter, can appear in Zoe’s dreams.
  • One of the Wyrd sisters tosses Zoe into the land of the dead, where Zoe meets her dead brother. Later in the story, he appears in the real word. When he appears, Zoe is the only one who can see him.
  • One of the characters uses tarot cards to help Zoe.
  • Zoe jumps into her mother’s memories and, “poked around, stirring a few things that seemed evocative of when she’d met my dad, and then I hoped for the best. And got the heck out of there before I learned too much.”
  • One of the Wyrd sisters blows kisses to a statue and it comes to life.
  • Zoe’s dead brother appears and helps her find clues to defeat the Mages.

Spiritual Content

  • One of the characters has been reincarnated; however, she does not remember anything from her past life.

Flying Blind

Zoe has dragon powers. . .or so she has been told. Zoe is the Wyvern of the Pye: the only female dragon shapeshifter and one with special powers. However, Zoe hasn’t been able to harness those powers and isn’t sure she is special at all. Zoe feels like a normal girl, and she’s struggling because she can’t tell her best friend Meagan about the changes that are about to happen.

Zoe hasn’t yet begun to understand what it means to be the Wyvern or how to change into a dragon, but when her best friend is bullied, her inner dragon makes an appearance. Suddenly Zoe is sent to boot camp with her shape-shifting friends. What Zoe hoped would be a time of learning becomes a time of fighting and her friends are beginning to turn against her. Zoe must learn to master her powers and stop the Mages from eliminating her and her friends—but first, she must convince her friends that she is not the enemy.

Zoe tells her story in a humorous manner, which shows the confusion of being a teenage girl. She isn’t the confident girl she dreams of being, but she’s working on believing in herself. The story contains suspense, action, and a lot of dragon fighting. Even though the fights often cover several pages, the wounds are not described in detail. In the end, Zoe is a very likable character who learns that believing in her capabilities is an important step towards becoming the Wyvern.

Besides the frequent profanity, the only other downside of the book is that Zoe is boy crazy. At the beginning of the story, she has a crush on one boy. On the same day, a young man drives her to boot camp. On the drive, she has sexual longings for him and kisses him on the cheek. Then when she gets to boot camp, she is again contemplating the hotness of a boy at camp.

Sexual Content

  • Zoe goes on a motorcycle ride with Jared. When he helps her with her helmet, “his fingers were warm on my chin as he fastened the strap, and I got all shivery at his touch. . . It was hard to say anything with my heart lunging around my chest as if it were trying to break free.”
  • Several times in the story, Zoe has a sexual longing for Jared and thinks about kissing him. In one instance she thinks, “. . . but he was hot. Having him so near me made bits of me tingle that I hadn’t even known I had.”
  • When Zoe thinks about almost kissing Jared, she thinks, “It would have been educational. An experience. A new sensation. That was the only reason I was curious.”
  • Zoe sees two of the characters, “making out like they’d invented it.” Later the same couple was, “locked into one hummer of a kiss, one that seemed to go on and on forever.”
  • When Zoe goes into her dad’s memory, she is careful. “I didn’t want to poke around too much there, certainly didn’t want to learn things I’d rather not know about my parents—I mean, they must have had sex, right? At least once?”
  • When Zoe asks if two people “did it”, her father “inclined his head, too diplomatic to speculate on anyone else’s sexual relations.”
  • Zoe wonders if she will lose her powers when she loses her virginity. “I was already fond of my powers, such as they were, but not excited by the prospect of lifelong celibacy just to ensure that I kept them.”

Violence

  • Two girls corner Zoe and her friend Meagan in the P.E. shower. During the confrontation, “Yvonne hooked Meagan’s ankle with one foot, jerking it hard. Meagan fell quickly, cracking her jaw on the tile floor. She didn’t move. And there was blood running toward the drain.” Zoe begins to turn into a dragon which scares the girls away.
  • Zoe becomes jealous of another girl and, “was tempted to throw a rock at her head.”
  • Two of the dragons fight. “He slashed, and Adrian flinched as one talon tore at the side of his face . . . Adrian went after him, striking him twice more, than giving him a wallop with his tale. He didn’t cut him; he didn’t burn him—he just thumped him.”
  • While drunk, several humans change into dragons and fight. One dragon is hit with dragonfire while trying to protect Zoe and, “I felt him stiffen in pain. I smelled his scales burning. And I heard the rhythm of his wings falter. Just before we fell out of the sky. Shit.”
  • In a dream, Zoe sees a boy hung lifeless from a tree. The boy begins talking to her, which scares her “shitless.”
  • Zoe turns into a dragon and fights with a shapeshifter. “I slashed at him with my talons, caught him across the snout, and ripped the skin from the corner of his eye to the edge of his nostril. He bellowed in pain, then belted me.” The fight continues for several pages with other dragons joining in. Because they are under a spell, several of the dragons try to kill Zoe and she only escapes because she turns into a salamander.
  • Over several pages, a fight between Zoe and another dragon is described. She “slammed him in the cojones with my tail at the same time that I punched him under the chin. Then he was the one reeling in pain.”
  • One of the characters explains how the Mages want to eliminate all other shapeshifters. In order to take a shapeshifter’s power, a Mage must eat them, “right to the last shred and drop.”
  • The end of the story has a dramatic fight between the dragons and the Mages. The fight includes trying to cast and break spells. Although the dragons use their fire, there is not a lot of description of the damage. When a Mage turns into a snake, Zoe, “stepped on it, hard, and ground my heel down into the floor . . . his scream was very satisfying.” During the fight, a dragon causes an earthquake and the building falls down hitting a Mage in the skull. “It was his blood under the rubble, and I couldn’t feel a lot of regret.”

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A group purchases sparkling wine, a case of beer, and a bottle of bourbon. Later, the group gets drunk and begins to fight with each other.

Language

  • There are frequent curse words used throughout the story. The profanity that is used includes: holy frick, bullshit, holy shit, badass, shit, and smart-ass.
  • There are several times that Zoe says or thinks about her emotional state as being “pissed off.” She also thinks that she doesn’t want to “piss off” her father.
  • Zoe’s mom ran a “crapload of red lights.”
  • Once when Zoe talks about rules, one of the characters says, “Fuck rules.”
  • During a fight, Zoe calls a girl “bitch.”
  • When someone loses the dragon’s scales, another character says, “You fucked up.”

Supernatural

  • Much of the book deals with the dragon culture. For instance, each dragon has a unique ability such as being able to see into the future, being able to communicate with the earth, being able to fix a dragon’s scales, etc.
  • If someone can take a person’s clothing while they are changing into a dragon, the dragon must fulfill three wishes.
  • Zoe has dreams that are more like visions. During one dream, a woman shows Zoe that if she shuts her right eye, she can see supernatural elements of the world.
  • Zoe has a rue stone which is, “kind of like tarot cards for Vikings. They carved symbols on small stones, then used them to tell the future.”
  • Zoe has a range of dragon powers such as being able to give people dreams, as well as being able to use her mind to locate where people are.
  • Dragons can beguile humans, “essentially it’s a kind of hypnosis that works on humans.” Usually, dragons use it to make humans forget they saw a human transform.
  • Mages can cast spells, but Jared uses his voice to conjure a spell to break the Mages’ spell.
  • Two ghosts appear to Zoe to show her how to break a spell and win the fight against the Mages.

Spiritual Content

  • At one point, Zoe prays, “to every deity I’d ever heard of. One of them must have listened.”
  • Zoe and her father discuss reincarnation. Her father says that Donovan’s named his son Nick. “It wasn’t just to honor a lost comrade. Donovan believed that Nick was Nikolas reborn.”

Blazing the Trail

As the school’s Valentine’s Day dance approaches, Zoe gives quiet and steady Derek a chance to win her heart. The only thing is, Zoe’s not sure her heart doesn’t already belong to rocker boy Jared. However, Jared is the king of mixed messages, ignoring Zoe one minute and then appearing out of nowhere to protect her. However, this time when Jared shows up, he puts the alliance that Zoe has carefully built in jeopardy. And with the Mages out to eliminate all shape shifters, Zoe needs the help of everyone—human and shapeshifters alike.

Zoe is a feisty character who is trying to do what is right. But her heart and her mind don’t always agree on the right plan of action. However, she is committed to keeping her friends alive. This proves to be a difficult task. Even if Zoe knew how to defeat the Mages, she isn’t sure if she can overcome her fear and take action when her life may be the final sacrifice.

Although Blazing the Trail loses some of its appeal, Zoe seems destined to trust those who are not trustworthy and fight the same battles. Although Zoe is likable, the fact that she repeats many of the same events of the earlier books makes her actions, and the book as a whole, more predictable.

Sexual Content

  • Kohana kisses Zoe.
  • Zoe kisses Derek several times in the book. In one scene Zoe, “leaned closer to him, touching my lips to his cheek. I felt him melt. It was strange, realizing that I had some ability to affect his thinking with just a little touch, and it gave me an uncomfortable sense of power.”
  • When Zoe and Derek kiss, “I felt the weight and heat of his hand on my shoulder, the touch of snowflakes melting on my face, the press of his body. And then his tongue met mine. I felt as if I’d touched an electrical wire and pulled back, my breath coming in gasps.”
  • Derek tells Zoe that they must make a union. Zoe knows that “he was talking about sex.” Derek then said that they could start by going steady.
  • One of the characters tells Zoe, “You’re sixteen. I haven’t been for a while. That makes you jailbait, and I’m not going to have any more dealings with cops ever again.”
  • At the end of the story, Jared kisses Zoe “hard. It was every bit as thrilling as the first time.”

Violence

  • While performing a ceremony to invoke the ShadowEaters, the ShadowEaters jump their constraints and, “feed on the third guy like a pack of vultures. . . I saw their teeth flash as they bit and snapped. When they retreated just seconds later, smacking their lips, he had collapsed on the ground.”
  • During a Mage ceremony, a girl’s throat is slit.
  • In a battle, Zoe slits a person in half. Then the person loses “the spell light that had filled his skin.” The shape shifters use their singing to destroy the Mages.
  • One of the Wyrd sisters finds the dead and eats them. “She hopped onto his chest in her raven form and ripped his flesh open with her beak. When she tore into his body cavity, presumably looking for that liver, I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
  • One of the Mages tricks Zoe into going with him. When they get to an isolated location, he “Kicked my feet out from beneath me. . .” Using a spell the Mages trap Zoe and intend to use the NightBlade to “cut the shadows away from the bodies of the victims, the better to offer sacrifices to the ShadowEaters.” Kohana saves Zoe, but another boy’s throat is slit. “Blood spurted from his throat.”
  • When a girl takes a picture of Zoe changing into a dragon, she and Zoe get into a fight.
  • In the dream world, one of the Wyrd sisters shows Zoe a battlefield where her friends lay dead.  “I gagged when I saw the eyeball impaled on the end of her knife. She laughed at me, then ate it off the tip of the blade, chewing with gusto.” Zoe also sees her own corpse.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Profanity is used often in both the character’s thoughts and words. The profanity includes: hell, holy shit, shit, fuck, bitch, bitchy, and ass.
  • Zoe said she, “was in a pretty crap mood when I got to English class late.” Later she said she was, “feeling a little bit pissed.”
  • When Zoe makes an error, she thinks, “this was a colossal fuckup on my part and I had to try to make it right.”
  • A girl calls Zoe a “bitch.”

Supernatural

  • In her dream, Zoe sees the Wyrd sisters who give her clues on how to defeat the Mages.
  • The Mages invoked the ShadowEaters “to feed them the shadows of their sacrificial victims.” The ShadowEaters hope to gain enough power that they can transcend into another form. “When ShadowEaters ate a shifter’s shadow, the shifter died. It was like the shifter ceased to exist, because he or she couldn’t cast a shadow—or because in eating the shadow, the ShadowEaters stole the shifters ability.”
  • The Mages use “glamours” to hide what is really there.
  • “Mages recruit humans with an innate musical ability. This power—called spellsinging—allows those gifted humans to enchant other humans with their music or their songs.”
  • Zoe’s dead brother appears and helps her find clues to defeat the Mages.
  • Zoe attends the birth of a cat shapeshifter. During the ceremony, the cat ancestors appear, but no one can see them except Zoe.
  • One of the Wyrd sisters gives Zoe her shears which can be used to cut spells.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Eldest

Eragon has accepted the responsibility that comes with being a Rider. As the only one who can stop the evil King Galbatorix, Eragon travels to Ellesmera to finish his training among the elves. He studies fighting, magic, and history. He grows stronger, but also weaker as the Shade’s dark magic continues to course through his veins. As its evil festers, Eragon begins to wonder if Saphira was wrong to choose him. For if he fails, all hope will be lost.

The second installment in the Eragon series, Eldest could have been cut in half and not lost anything necessary to the story. Eragon’s journey to the elves dragged on too long, as did his training. A good chunk of the book is told from the point of view of Eragon’s cousin, but his personality is flat and unengaging. There were, however, very interesting moments during Eragon’s time with the elves and the book ended with plenty of action. As with the first novel, this story has a lot of gory violence that might be too frightening for some readers.

Sexual Content

  • Eragon and his teacher wash in a stream after working out. “Going to the stream by the house, they quickly disrobed. Eragon surreptitiously watched the elf, curious as to what he looked like without his clothes…No hair grew upon his chest or legs, not even around his groin.”
  • During a festival, “the two elves raised their hands to the brooches at their throats, unclasped them, and allowed their white robes to fall away. Though they wore no garments, the women were clad in an iridescent tattoo of a dragon…Slowly at first, but with gathering speed, [they] began to dance, marking time with the stamp of their feet on the dirt and undulating so that it was not they who seemed to move but the dragon upon them.”
  • A woman “even went so far as to insinuate that one of his grandparents had mated with an Urgal.”

Violence

  • Eragon remembers a great battle he fought in. “Beyond that, he no longer believed that life possessed inherent meaning—not after seeing men torn apart by the Kull…and the ground a bed of thrashing limbs and the dirt so wet with blood it soaked through the soles of his boots. If any honor existed in war, he concluded, it was in fighting to protect others from harm. He bent and plucked a tooth, a molar, from the dirt.”
  • Eragon’s cousin, Roran, gets in many fights, lies, cheats, and kills many people with his friends. Some are in self-defense, some are initiated by him. “Sloan howled like an enraged beast, threw his cleaver, and split one of the men’s helms, crushing his skull…Sloan yanked him closer and gored him through the eye with a carving knife from his belt…almost prancing with a terrible, bloody glee.”
  • After a fight, “The boy, Nolfavrell, was kneeling by the body of a soldier, methodically stabbing him in the chest as tears slid down his chin.”
  • Ayra tells the story of a woman who murdered the man who spurned her. “She found him with the woman and, in her fury, she stabbed him to death.”
  • Eragon learns how to kill with magic. “All it takes is for a single artery in the brain to be pinched off, or for certain nerves to be severed. With the right spell, you could obliterate an army.”
  • When the braying of a donkey almost reveals his hiding place, “Without hesitation, Roran dropped to one knee, fit arrow to string, and shot the ass between the ribs.”
  • When a man finds out Roran is a fugitive, he “jabbed forward with his spear, catching the white-haired soldier in the throat. Scarlet blood fountained. Releasing the spear, Roran drew his hammer and twisted round as he blocked the second soldier’s poleax with his shield. Swinging his hammer up and around, Roran crushed the man’s helm.”
  • Before a battle, a woman poisons the soldiers on the other side. “Not a very honorable way to fight, I suppose, but I’d rather do this than be killed.”
  • There is a great and lengthy battle. “Eragon could not tell from whose mouth emanated the ravenous jet of flame that consumed a dozen soldiers, cooking them in their mail, nor whose arm it was that brought Zar’roc down in an arc, cleaving a soldier’s helm in half.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Wine/mead is consumed at many meals, by Eragon as well as Saphira.
  • Eragon and Saphira get drunk. “They abandoned their food and filled their stone tankards with beer and mead…Even Saphira took a sip of mead, and finding that she liked it, the dwarves rolled out a whole barrel for her.” They both wake up hungover the next morning.
  • A trapper says, “After a few steins of ale—to lubricate my speaking, you understand…”
  • During a feast, Eragon “drank the cup’s clear liqueur and gasped as it blazed down his throat. It tasted like mulled cider mixed with mead.”
  • Orik gets drunk on Faelnirv, “A mosht wonderful, ticklish potion. The besht and greatest of the elves’ tricksty inventions.”
  • After a battle Eragon, “took a small sip of the liqueur to revitalize himself and gasped as it raced down his throat, making his nerves tingle with cold fire.”

Language

  • Bastard is used a few times. When Roran sees the men who killed his father, he says “That’s…they’re the bastards…”
  • Ass is used to describe a donkey.

Supernatural

  • Elves, dwarves, dragons, Urgals, and many other creatures live in Eragon’s world.
  • Eragon has a premonition about a battle. When he asks his friend about premonitions, she tells him, “The elf Maerzadi had a premonition that he would accidentally kill his son in battle. Rather than live to see it happen, he committed suicide, saving his son, and at the same time proving that the future isn’t set. Short of killing yourself, however, you can do little to change your destiny.”
  • Eragon tries to bless a child in the ancient language, but accidentally curses her. His teacher tells him, “Instead of protecting this child from the vagaries of fate, you condemned her to be a sacrifice for others, to absorb their misery and suffering so that they might live in peace.”

Spiritual Content

  • An elf argues with a dwarf over their religion, since “elves do not hold with ‘muttering into the air for help.’ “
  • When Eragon learns to hear the thoughts of living creatures, he finds he can no longer stomach the idea of eating meat. “Gripped by revulsion, Eragon thrust the meat away, as appalled by the fact that he had killed the rabbits as if he had murdered two people. His stomach churned and threatened to make him purge himself.”
  • Eragon’s teacher tells him that his and Saphira’s “souls, your identities—call it what you will—have been welded on a primal level…Do you believe that a person’s soul is separate from his body?” Eragon replies, “I don’t know.”
  • When Eragon says an animal isn’t a person his teacher says, “‘Do you truly believe that any of us are so different from a woodrat? That we are gifted with a miraculous quality that other creatures do not enjoy and that somehow preserves our being after death?’ ‘No,’ muttered Eragon.”
  • The elves, “do not worship at all…if gods exist, have they been good custodians of Alagaesia? Death, sickness, poverty, tyranny, and countless other miseries stalk the land. If this is the handiwork of divine beings, then they are to be rebelled against and overthrown, not given obeisance, obedience, and reverence.”
  • Murtagh is under a spell. Eragon asks Murtagh for permission to kill him, as it is the only way to stop him. “‘It would free you from Galbatorix’s control. And it would save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Isn’t that a noble enough cause to sacrifice yourself for?’ Murtagh shook his head. ‘Maybe for you, but life is still too sweet for me to part with it so easily. No stranger’s life is more important than Thorn’s or my own.’ ”

by Morgan Lynn

Eragon

Dragons are all but extinct in Alagaesia, which is why Eragon is confounded when a blue rock mysteriously appears in the woods. Hoping to make a profit, he tries to sell the pretty stone. But the dragon inside has chosen a different path for the boy who found her.

Eragon is an exciting story that will enthrall readers. Although it is written at a junior high reading level, it contains much violence and alludes to some sexual content. If your junior higher is mature this tale will no doubt delight them. But if your child has not yet been exposed to adult content such as the brutality of war, this series may not be the best fit.

Sexual Content

  • Eragon asks his friend, “Did you kill someone important or bed the wrong woman?”
  • The elf reveals that while in captivity, “His methods were . . . harsh. When torture failed, he ordered his soldiers to use me as they would.”

Violence

  • In the opening chapter, an elf is ambushed by a Shade. The Shade “saw three of his charges fall in a pile, mortally wounded…Black Urgal blood dripped from her sword, staining the pouch in her hand.”
  • Eragon finds his uncle wounded. “His skin was gray, lifeless, and dry…Deep, ragged burns covered most of his body. They were chalky white and oozed clear liquid. A cloying, sickening smell hung over him—the odor of rotting fruit. His breath came in short jerks, each one sounding like a death rattle.”
  • Eragon and his friend Brom steal food, money, and supplies several times while on the run. “The thievery made him feel guilty, but he reasoned, It’s not really stealing. I’ll pay Gedric back someday.” “Brom pocketed the money with a wink. ‘Anyone who gulls innocent travelers for a living ought to know better than to carry such a large sum on his person.’”
  • Eragon comes across much slaughter on his travels. Once an entire village is killed. “A mountain of bodies rose above them, the corpses stiff and grimacing. Their clothes were soaked in blood, and the churned ground was stained with it. Slaughtered men lay over the women they had tried to protect, mothers still clasped their children, and lovers who had tried to shield each other rested in death’s cold embrace. Black arrows stuck out of them all. Neither young nor old had been spared. But worst of all was the barbed spear that rose out of the peak of the pile, impaling the white body of a baby.”
  • Eragon learns to fight with magic. “He shot, yelling, ‘Brisingr!’ The arrow hissed through the air, glowing with a crackling blue light. It struck the lead Urgal on the forehead, and the air resounded with an explosion.”
  • Eragon’s dragon fights on several occasions. “Saphira whirled on the monster, roaring savagely. Her talons slashed with blinding speed. Blood spurted everywhere as the Urgal was rent in two.”
  • Slavery exists. “He watched helplessly as the slave was sold to a tall, hawk-nosed man. The next slave was a tiny girl, no more than six years old, wrenched from the arms of her crying mother.”
  • There are many times where Eragon and his companions are attacked and fight to defend themselves. “An angry snarl from behind made Eragon spin around, sword held high…’Brisignr!’ barked Eragon, stabbing out with magic. The Urgal’s face contorted with terror as he exploded in a flash of blue light. Blood splattered Eragon, and a brown mass flew through the air…He caught a second one in the throat with Zar’roc, wheeled wildly, and slashed a third through the heart.”
  • Eragon threatens a soldier to get him to talk. “Do you know how much pain a grain of sand can cause you when it’s embedded red hot in your stomach? Especially when it doesn’t cool off for the next twenty years and slowly burns its way down to your toes! By the time it gets out of you, you’ll be an old man…Unless you tell me what I want.”
  • Murtagh kills a Shade. “The next arrow caught him between the eyes. The Shade howled with agony and writhed, covering his face. His skin turned gray. Mist formed in the air around him, obscuring his figure. There was a shattering cry; then the cloud vanished.”
  • Eragon rescues an elf who had been imprisoned and tortured. “The elf’s back was strong and muscled, but it was covered with scabs that made her skin look like dry, cracked mud. She had been whipped mercilessly and branded with hot irons in the shape of claws. Where her skin was still intact, it was purple and black from numerous beatings…Eragon silently swore an oath that he would kill whoever was responsible.”
  • Eragon and Murtagh argue over killing a man who attacked them. “Murtagh gazed at him coldly, then swung his blade at Torkenbran’s neck. ‘No!’ shouted Eragon, but it was too late. Torkenbrand’s decapitated trunk crumpled to the ground in a puff of dirk. His head landed with a hard thump.” Eragon says they should have let him run, Murtagh says “I’m only trying to stay alive…No stranger’s life is more important than my own.”
  • Angela says, “I loathe Shades – they practice the most unholy magic, after necromancy. I’d like to dig his heart out with a dull hairpin and feed it to a pig!”
  • There is a great battle. “At a command, the cauldrons of pitch were tilted on their sides, pouring the scalding liquid into the tunnel’s hungry throat. The monsters howled in pain, arms flailing. A torch was thrown onto the bubbling pitch, and an orange pillar of greasy flames roared up into the opening, engulfing the Urgals in an inferno.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Eragon drinks alcohol a few times. “The inn’s food was barely adequate, but its beer was excellent. By the time they stumbled back to the room, Eragon’s head was buzzing pleasantly…What was I thinking? wondered Eragon in the morning. His head was pounding and his tongue felt thick and fuzzy.”

Language

  • Variations of damn are used several times. “I won’t deal with anything you bring back from those damned mountains!” “Damnation! It’s not locked.”
  • Bastard is used a few times. “I find that I prefer them when they’re greedy bastards.” “There’s only one reason for the king to gather such a force – to forge a bastard army of humans and monsters to destroy us.”

Supernatural

  • There are many races in Alagaesia. They include elves, dwarves, dragons, and Urgals.
  • Shades are created when a human tried to control spirits in order to practice magic but is overpowered. The spirits take over the human body and control it.
  • Many people can use different types of magic, whether speaking words from the ancient language or by harnessing spirits.
  • Eragon can communicate with animals by touching their minds. He can speak to people in the same way, hear their thoughts, and attack their minds using magic.
  • Eragon meets a were-cat. They can see the future, speak using their minds, and transform into small humanoid figures.
  • An herbalist uses bones to tell Eragon’s future.

Spiritual Content

  • Eragon and his friend Brom lie often since they are fugitives on the run. “Eragon knew he had to lie.”
  • When Eragon’s adopted father dies, he shouts “What god would do this? Show yourself! He didn’t deserve this!”
  • Eragon comes across a town that has been slaughtered and wonders, “What does our existence mean when it can end like this?”
  • Brom describes the religion of the city Dras-Leona. “Their prayers go to Helgrind. It’s a cruel religion they practice. They drink human blood and make flesh offerings. Their priests often lack body parts because they believe that the more bone and sinew you give up, the less you’re attached to the mortal world.”

by Morgan Lynn

Dragonbreath: Nightmare of the Iguana

Horrifying dream monsters are keeping Wendell awake. In an attempt to help his friend, Danny Dragonbreath and Suki the Salamander go in search of advice from Danny’s wise mythological great-grandfather Dragonbreath. Danny and Suki must defeat the Dream Wasp before it can lay eggs in Wendell’s dreams, which would cause Wendell to go crazy. So Danny, Suki, and a sleepy dream eater enter the “dark horrors of Wendell’s subconscious.” They climb mounds of healthy food, run from a school bully, and search a massive library before they find the Dream Wasp and smash her eggs.

Nightmare of the Iguana is hilarious, action-packed, fun. Wendell’s dreams are the frightening things that kids can relate to—not doing well on a pop quiz, a mother who is a health food nut, and a girl finding out that he likes her. Danny’s wise mythological great-grandfather Dragonbreath’s hearing problems lead to humorous statements. As Danny and Suki enter Wendell’s subconscious and fight dream monsters, the battles involve more running than actual fighting.

Green and black illustrations add to the allure of the book. Drawing with dialogue balloons helps break up the text and keep the action moving. Dragonbreath shows the value of friendship and will get even the most reluctant readers engaged in the story. Although Night of the Iguana is the eighth book of the Dragonbreath series, the story can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story.

Sexual Content

  • Suki kisses Wendell on the cheek.

Violence

  • Monsters chase Danny and Suki, yelling “We will crush their bones and then give them pop quizzes!” They hide in the library, and when a monster finds them, “the monster with the battle-ax swung and hit the weakened bookcase. It collapsed slowly. Books slid off in a waterfall of paper.” They find a staircase in a book and are able to escape unharmed.
  • The dream eater (baku)  fights the Dream Wasp. “The floor shook as the two collided. The Wasp slashed with its bladed forearms, but the baku’s hide was thick and knobby . . .” Danny and Suki began throwing it’s eggs at the Wasp. The battle is described over a chapter and with the dream eater killing the Wasp.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When being chased by monsters, Suki says, “Oh, crud.”
  • While squishing the Wasp’s eggs, Suki says, “Oh god, this is disgusting.”

Supernatural

  • Danny and Suki enter Wendell’s dream world and see the “dark horrors of Wendell’s subconscious.”
  • Dream monsters enter Wendell’s dreams. The main one, the Dream Wasp, lays its eggs in Wendell’s mind. “The Dream Wasp was the size of a house . . . Its stinger was as long as a car and tapered to a wickedly sharp point. Its jaws were serrated and meshed together like a bone zipper. Its forelegs looked like steak knives, assuming that by ‘steak’ you meant ‘the entire cow.’”

Spiritual Content

  • Danny’s great-grandfather is helping Suki. “He’s teaching me meditative techniques. To help with being a ninja in a past life.”

 

Have Sword, Will Travel

Odo never dreamed of leaving his small town. His best friend, Eleanor, longs for adventure. Everything changes for the two of them when Odo pulls an enchanted sword, Biter, from the river.

Even though Odo doesn’t want adventure, Biter knights him and demands that Odo go on a quest to discover why the town’s river has dried up. Eleanor goes along, excited for the chance to explore the unknown. Along the way, Odo and Eleanor discover that life outside of their village is full of both good and evil and that danger often lurks in unexpected places.

A fast-paced story full of interesting characters—human and non-human— Have Sword, Will Travel takes the reader on an epic adventure. Eleanor is a feisty heroine and Odo is a reluctant hero that children will love. Written with humor, the story teaches lessons such as not bending the truth, fighting for what is right, and defending those in need.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When two boys make fun of Odo, the sword attempts to attack them. The sword slices “a figure-eight through the air despite Odo’s efforts to keep him grounded.” Odo manages to stop the sword, and the boys run off.
  • Odo must fight Fyrennian, a cruel smith. When Biter attempts to kill Fyrennian, Odo “managed to pull back on the sword at the last moment, deflecting the sword from a killing thrust.”
  • Eleanor is corned by a huge dog. She flings hot coals on the floor, trapping the dog.
  • Someone hits Fyrennian on the head, and “the smith toppled forward like a stone.”
  • A refugee tells a story about “corpses drifting down the river, the bodies of people cooked to death in boiling water.”
  • Sir Saskia challenges Odo to a duel to keep the citizens entertained. The battle is described over several pages. Odo is outmatched, and Sir Saskia strikes Odo’s shoulder twice. “His shoulder felt like it was swelling up inside the armor.” She hits Odo in the same spot a third time, “on his shoulder again, jarring it so much he lost feeling all the way down his arm. His nerveless fingers could no longer hold the sword, and the grip on his left hand was too weak.” Odo is forced to yield.
  • A dragon attacks Odo and Eleanor. Odo strikes the dragon. “The blade scored a vivid line in the blackened hide, exposing softer bone-white flesh beneath . . . he stabbed forward and pierced one wing right up to the cross-guard.” An older woman comes and helps the children escape.
  • A group of Sir Saskia’s troops attacks Eleanor. A person trips and “impaled himself” on the sword. In the end, there is, “one wounded, one dying . . . maybe . . . and one surrendered.”
  • Odo and Eleanor blow up a dam that has been built to stop the river from flowing. When they do, Odo almost drowns. “Odo lay weakly on his stomach, coughing up dirty water while Eleanor pounded his back.”
  • Odo and Eleanor get into a battle with bandits. The battle lasts over several pages. “Biter came down point-first on Mannix’s shoulder, shearing through his armor as if it were no more than river mud. Mannix screamed and swore and clutched at the wound with his left hand, his right arm now useless.” During the fight, Eleanor is kicked with steel-clad boots, and “the pain was like fire.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At home, Eleanor drinks weak ale because water isn’t always clean.
  • Odo and Eleanor find a group of men passing around mugs. One of the men is telling a story. In the middle of the story he stops, and they see his “eyes suddenly rolling back into his head and his falling backward, unconscious. Fortunately, the arms of his friends were ready to catch him . . .”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Biter, an enchanted sword, is able to talk and control his own movements. He teaches Odo how to wield a sword and act like a knight. Later in the story, the children find Biter’s sister, who believes she is cursed and will bring death to those who wield her.
  • A smith has a firestarter that came from a dragon. He uses it to terrorize others into working for him.
  • A dragon appears to judge several of the characters in the book. The dragon looks at Odo, “really looked at him. He felt her ancient, knowing gaze penetrate into the very depths of his being.” Mannix is found guilty and the “dragon’s tail moved again, whipping around like a scorpion’s, the long spike on the end stabbing Mannix right through the middle and then flipping him back into the dragon’s mouth. It happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to scream.” Another person is cursed and forced to do as the dragon commands.
  • Urthkin, “pale-skinned, reed-slender demi-humans” that have “paws like a mole’s, with digging claws,” only come out at night because light hurts their eyes. They believe that “wisdom comes from closer to the ground.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Hercufleas

On the night of the new moon, Yuk comes to guzzle the townsfolk. In an effort to save her town, Greta travels to Avalon to find a giant-slaying hero. What she finds instead is Hercufleas. He may be small, but he is (mostly) convinced that he can help Greta.

In an epic adventure, Greta and Hercufleas set off to find the one weapon—the Black Death—that can slay Yuk. As they travel, Greta’s bitterness and despair threaten to overtake her. Can the two figure out a way to save the village? Or will their despair cause the end of Greta’s world?

Hercufleas is a fun-filled fantasy that shows that size doesn’t make a person mighty. Filled with outrageously unique villains, an uncertain hero, and a little girl who doesn’t believe in anything, Hercufleas takes the reader on an adventure that readers will not soon forget. In the end, the reader is left with the message that evil cannot destroy evil, only goodness can.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A shopkeeper hires two villains to kill Greta. They try to kill her but want to make it look like an accident. One of the assassins dies when he falls from his flying bird. The assassin, “disappeared with a hideous shriek down into the fog.”
  • The shopkeeper finds Greta and plans on killing her. Instead, he is bitten by a rattleroot and dies. “Stickler screamed and kicked with his leg, trying to shake it off . . . the paralyzing poison was already starting to work.”
  • Yuk, an enormous monster, eats the townsfolk.
  • Hercufleas challenges Sir Klaus, a mouse, to a duel. They fight until one drop of blood is shed.
  • When Yuk comes to guzzle people, the townsfolk attack. “The Cossacks had thrown their iron nets over the giant. In seconds, they fixed them into the ground with stakes and hammers. During this time Yuk devours several people. “A terrible scream echoed from somewhere below. Perched above Yuk’s tonsils, Hercufleas saw a dim shape tumble down the giants’ throat and vanished with a faraway plop.
  • Hercufleas battles rattleroots.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Miss Witz has a copper bell, and “a Gypsy had charmed the bell so lies make it ring.”
  • The fleas in the story were created (though alchemy) to be tall, talking fleas. “Alchemy is where you make up potions that can change you.”
  • The stone giant was “chiseled from granite and brought to life by alchemy.”
  • Hercufleas eats strands from Yuk’s brain, which allows him to see Yuk’s memories.

Spiritual Content

  • The fleas have a prayer that ends with, “we’ll all jump to fleaven/When our last jump comes.”  Fleaven is where “all great and good bugs of the world go.”
  • Greta passes the great salt lakes and explains that “it comes from the old prophecies. God adds one salty tear to the lakes for every new evil in the world.”

 

Dragonborn

Sam lived a quiet life as a wizard’s apprentice. Sam’s only friend was a dragon named Starback. When Sam’s master dies, other wizards come to help bury the man. When the group argues over Sam’s fate, he runs. Sam is unsure of where to go, but he knows he wants to finish his education in magic.

Sam and Starback set off on a journey. They know Sam must avoid the wizards, but there are hidden threats as well. There is someone who wants Sam’s power, and she’ll use deceit and magic to capture Sam. Will Sam be able to find his path without being trapped in her snare?

A book about a boy and a dragon should be amazing, but Dragonborn lacks action. For most of the story, the dragon is off trying to protect Sam, but he isn’t an integral part of the plot. As Sam travels he meets some interesting people and learns about himself, but the story often lacks suspense.

Dragonborn was written for readers as young as eight, but the plot is difficult to follow. The beginning of the story goes back and forth between Sam’s stories and the apprentice’s notebook, which gives information about Sam’s world. Although the transitions between these two are clear, Sam’s story is more complicated because there are flashbacks that may be confusing for some readers. The point of view of the story changes between characters, which adds to the confusing nature of the story. There are so many characters introduced in the beginning chapters that it is difficult to keep track of all of them.

One aspect that may upset younger readers are the scenes that deal with death. The story begins with death, and the final preparations of the body are performed. Later in the story, Sam stumbles into a house where a man has just died and Sam must perform the burial rites, including taking the man to the Finished World. Although the book does not address what happens after one dies, the story may lead to questions about the afterlife.

Although the story has plenty of magic—both good and bad—the story does not explain how spells are made. The apprentice’s notebook reads, “Now, whenever it is worked, it does more than was meant, and it lives a life of its own. So never, never make magic just to make life easier, or to do something quicker. Always keep your magic for something that matters.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A girl attending wizard school often gets into trouble. One day she loses her temper and floods the classroom. The teacher is unable to stop the flood. “The other pupils were thrashing about, trying to stay above the surface as the water filled the room. They made magic lifejackets and dinghies, they flailed about the swell. . . Just as they were about to lose the battle and drown, Tamrin released the spell.”
  • Ash has her creature kill a prisoner. “Bakkmann hurled itself at the dazed prisoner and stabbed into his heart, once, twice, then started to suck and bite noisily at the body.”
  • When Sam performs a burial ritual and opens the door to the Finished World, Ash tries to pull Sam into the Finished World. “Sam could sense that she was using the wild magic of the mines to keep hold of him.”
  • Ash reads a note on a moth, then kills it. She “held the moth over the flame, watching its wings scorch then flame for a moment before turning to ash. The fat, black body bubbled, dripped, and dissolved.”
  • Ash creates a spell. “The boy was on fire. Flames flowed over him. His hair was a fiery torch, his finger ends, candles. He rolled over and over in his frenzy to put the flames out. Nothing made any difference. . . Smedge shrieked in pain. Then, as though it had never been, the fire disappeared.” Later in the story, Ash again uses a spell to set Smedge on fire, so he feels pain but is unharmed.
  • Ash has a “clacking creature” that listens to her orders. One of the creatures, “pounced on Khazib, and jabbed a long, sharp tongue into his shoulder, drawing blood. Khazib screamed in pain and surprise. . . Khazib looked at the blood flowing from his wound. He panted with pain.”
  • A wizard causes beetles to attack Sam. “The huge beetle dived and flew straight into Sam’s face. The others followed, swarming all over him. Into his ears, his nose. . . he could feel them probing with their sharp legs. . . He was drowning in beetles, being eaten alive by them.” In order to save Sam, a dragon kills the wizard. “Its jaws seized on Caleb’s head and jerked it to one side. The boy heard bones snap. The dragon shook Caleb as a terrier shakes a rat. Caleb’s head lolled to the left, one side of his face burned away.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The weavers “do not weave when twilight comes, but sit and drink beer and tell stories.”
  • While traveling with a roffle, Sam and the roffle sit down to eat. “There was lemonade for Sam and beer for the roffle as well.”
  • After a character is taken to the Finished World, the crowd has food and drink. The men and women “stood in small knots of friendship with mugs of beer and cider, beakers of wine.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The story revolves around wizards who cast spells.
  • Ash is a creature whose limbs fall off and grow back, her eyes bleed, and she eats beetles. She picks up a beetle and “put it to her lips without thinking. She crunched it, sucked the soft pulp from inside, licked it clean, then dropped the empty husk into the remains of the fire.”
  • When Ash attempts to escape her prison, she goes to the doorway. “Her foot snapped off at the ankle and hung in the air outside. . . Her arms had gone through as far as the elbows, then stopped. Her weight sagged. She fell to her knees and her forearms snapped off. . .”
  • Sam looks at a book and concentrates on the letters when “green and blue smoke hovered for a second and then contracted, gathered together over the plate; and, in a moment, it formed itself into a tiny Green and Blue Dragon.”
  • Sam looks toward the stars for messages. “Sam tried to read them. They whispered to him, many voices, many words, many thoughts. He could not make out what they were saying.”
  • Hungry and dehydrated, Sam leaves his body. “. . . He was high above the crowd, looking down at them. He was a dragon again. Hunger gone, thirst forgotten, he soared above it all, rejoicing in the splendor of the air . . . Thinking of himself send him back not himself. . .”
  • One of the characters has a connection to a wolf. “When I need to see with the wolf’s eyes, I disappear into the wolf. I stop being Axestone until it’s over.”
  • Sam discovers that he is a dragon and a boy. “Being a dragon and a boy at the same time was like learning to swim . . . but soon enough he knew the difference between one and the other.”

Spiritual Content

  • When a person dies, someone must prepare the body. Then, someone must accompany the body and open the door to the Finished World. When the door is opened, the person moves into the Finished World.

 

 

The Bard and the Beast

Playing with his dragon, having a toad race, and having a berry war with Clara—these are the things that are important to Prince Lucas. When Queen Tasha decides that Lucas will learn to play a musical instrument, he is reluctant to go to lessons. Even when a traveling bard comes to the castle, Lucas still isn’t convinced that music can be magical. When the two go for a walk, Lucas takes the bard to peek inside a cave, but instead of finding lizards, they find a ferocious monster.

Young readers will relate to Lucas for a variety of reasons—Lucus struggles to be on time, he angers his mother, and he doesn’t see the importance of learning to play an instrument. Suspense is added when Lucas keeps finding strange, green feathers. The bard brings additional action to the plot by telling exciting stories of how music has helped keep kingdoms safe.

Black and white illustrations appear on almost every page and help readers visualize the story. Easy-to-read vocabulary, dialogue, and simple sentence structure make The Bard and the Beast a perfect book for beginning readers. Although The Bard and the Beast is the ninth installment of a series, the previous books do not need to be read in order to enjoy the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A bard tells the story of a king who went fishing. A huge snake swam along the boat, and the king “lifted his paddle and whacked the snake on the head.” When the snake went to attack, a bard used music to confuse the snake. “It shook its head wildly and then lowered itself into the water and disappeared.” Later that night, the snake came into the king’s sleeping chamber, ready to attack, but the bard again played music to save the king.
  • Will goes into a cave where a basilisk lives. If he looks into the basilisk’s eyes, it will kill him.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Chill of the Ice Dragon

A terrible Ice Giant has turned Mina’s kingdom and all the people in the castle to ice. She leaves the Far North Lands to find help. Mina arrives at the castle and asks Drake and his friends for help. Only a fire dragon can defeat the Ice Giant, but Rori and Vulcan are no longer at the castle. Will the Dragon Masters be able to find Rori and help defeat the Ice Giant?

The ninth book in the Dragon Masters series has the same black and white illustrations that help the readers visualize the characters and the action of the story. Easy vocabulary and simple sentence structure will allow beginning readers to enjoy the story. For those who have not read the previous books, Chill of the Ice Dragon may be confusing because of the many characters in the story. The end of the story is exciting and action-packed, but the beginning is choppy and doesn’t transition to different scenes smoothly.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Dragons fight. “Neru began to glow with energy. But before the purple dragon could attack, green beams of light shot from Worm’s eyes!  They’d zapped Neru, sending him jolting backward.”
  • A character uses a magic crystal to control a dragon.
  • Over several chapters, the dragon masters and their dragons fight Vasty, who has frozen the kingdom. “Green energy beams shot from Worm’s eyes, aimed at the crystal. But Frost was fast. He shot his icy breath at Worm.”
  • Vasty is defeated when Frost “shot his icy breath at the staff, knocking it out of Vasty’s hands. Hulda blasted magic from her fingertips. The giant staggered backward.” Eventually Vasty is shrunken and Frost creates “a swirling tunnel of ice” that sucks up the tiny giant.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • A character uses a “gazing ball” to show Mina the other dragon masters.
  • Each dragon has special powers. For example, when people touch Worm, he transports them to different places. Another dragon sprays poisonous mist.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

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