Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends #1) by Tui T. Sutherland

 Wings of Fire

When I saw my nephew for the first time in over a year, he had a stack of books for me. He'd been saving up all his recommendations and oh, be still my heart, he's old enough to give me reading recommendations!  So he was super excited for me to read Darkstalker, which is a prequel to the events of the original series.

This book was infinitely better than some of the original books. It's also really dark. I mean, dark is in the name, but the themes are SO DARK. There is a violent murder on page 70 and it just kept getting more and more intense, so if your child is a sensitive soul, this might not be the book for you. If you're an adult reading this book because a nearly twelve-year-old told you to read it, you might learn a little about the maturity level of that child.

This book follows three dragonets: Fathom, Clearsight, and Darkstalker. We know how Darkstalker is going to turn out, but we meet him as an innocent young dragon and then, through a series of decisions that seem to be based on good intentions at the time, turn him into something *ahem* dark. Meanwhile, his friends Fathom and Clearsight are doing all that they can to save his soul. The plot in this book moves along swiftly, the writing is clear, and Sutherland is so invested in this world that I desperately want Universal Studios to create it for me in my world.

I have some nitpicks, of course. There's a bit about how if you don't have children, you might as well be dead, which is an appalling bit of thought to have in a children's book.  There's also a funny bit at the end about how dragons aren't evil, just sometimes make bad decisions, which is similar to something that my brother-in-law, a city attorney who prosecutes felonies, says to his kids - they're not bad adults, just adults who made bad decisions. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, if you have a little nerd in your life who likes dragons, you should definitely recommend this to him or her, particularly if they've read other books by Sutherland.  

Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland

On a Zoom call in mid-June, my eleven-year-old nephew, who until this point in all our family Zoom calls had not said a word unless a question was pointedly asked of him, all of a sudden started waving around a book and suggesting that everyone read it.  I was, frankly, astounded. He's a quiet kid who likes cars and football trading cars, but is kind of nervous about drawing attention to himself.  The book was Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy.  Immediately, another one of my nephews started talking about how good it was and HOW HAD I NEVER HEARD OF THIS BOOK?  Anyway, I immediately put in on my hold list at the library because my nephew recommended a book to me. I enjoy my little nerds.

Note: These are middle readers. The lexile score places these as appropriate for third to eighth graders.  So this isn't great literature, but it's not NOT great literature. 

The Dragonet Prophecy (Volume One): So there are seven dragon tribes and they each have an alliance in an ongoing war over control of the dragonverse.  The book starts with a run-down on each of these types of dragons.

MudWings: Brown dragons who can breathe fire if it's warm enough,  hold their breath for a long period of time, and are usually very strong.

SkyWings: Dragons with red-gold or orange scales who can breathe fire and are very powerful fliers with their enormous wings.

SandWings: Dragons the color of desert sand who have forked tongues and a poisonous barbed tail.  They can survive a long time in the desert without water, poison other dragons with their tails, and breathe fire.

SeaWings: Blue, green, or aquamarine colored scales, gills, and glow-in-the-dark stripes on their tails/snouts/underbellies.  They can breathe underwater, see in the dark, and are powerful swimmers who can do some serious wave-making with their tails.

IceWings: Silvery or pale blue scales, ridged claws to grip the ice, and forked blue tongues. They can withstand freezing temperatures and very bright light and exhale a deadly freezing breath. 

RainWings: Scales constantly shift colors that they use to blend into their surroundings which is good because, other than a prehensile tail that's good for climbing, RainWings don't have a lot of natural weapons in their arsenal.

NightWings: Purplish-black scales and scattered silver sales under their wings, so that they blend into the night sky when flying. NightWings can breathe fire, disappear into the dark, read minds, and foretell the future.  They are quite mysterious. 

After this introduction, we're told all about a prophecy about five dragonets who will end the ongoing war among the dragons.

Cut to those dragons.

Clay is a MudWing. He is loyal to the other dragonets, strong, and can stay underwater for long periods of time. The book is told mostly through his point of view.

Glory is a RainWing.  RainWings weren't mentioned in the prophecy, but her egg was chosen as a replacement for a SkyWing egg that was broken.  The adult dragons who "take care" of the dragonets refer to Glory as lazy, but we learn there's more to her than the caretakers know about.  Glory is smart and studies history and whatever little bits of knowledge the caretakers tell them about how the dragon tribes fight, live, and feed.

Sunny is a SandWing. She's smaller than most of her kind, her eyes are grey-green instead of black, her scales are gold instead of a pale sand color, and her tail doesn't end in a poisonous barb, meaning she doesn't have much in the way of self-defense.  Her name is her personality, though, and Sunny is cheerful and trusting.

Tsunami is a SeaWing. She's quick-tempered and a dive in a body of water generally makes her feel better when things are going wrong.

Starflight is a NightWing. He's not really much of a personality in this book, but I'm hoping that comes through soon enough.

Anyway, all of this is the first thirty pages of the book. So much exposition! The adult dragons who "take care" of the dragonets are actually kind of mean and abusive.  The dragonets devise a plan to escape and when they manage to do so, they're almost immediately caught and imprisoned by Queen Scarlet, the leader of the SkyWings.  Much of the book is about how they will escape from Scarlet's evil clutches and gladiator-style arena fights to the death.  We end the book learning about Clay's family and a secret about Tsunami's family.  

The Lost Heir (Volume Two): In this book, we switch from Clay the MudWing's perspective to Tsunami, the SeaWing's perspective. Tsunami's egg was stolen from the royal hatchery by the dragon Webs before she was born and she's eager to return to her mother, Queen Coral.  While the queen welcomes Tsunami, some mysterious element has been murdering Coral's dragonets for years and it looks like Tsunami might be in danger.

This book spends a great deal of time with Tsunami, her sister Anemone, Tsunami's ally Riptide, and introduces a gazillion SeaWings who are Coral's advisors. We don't spend much time with the other dragonets and that made me a little sad as I was reading this book.  

Tsunami is not my favorite dragon, but she does come around in the end. I thought this book was much less fun to read than the first one, but I'm hoping the series comes around when the POV switches to a dragon who is more fun to read about.

The Hidden Kingdom (Volume Three): We switch to Glory the RainWing's perspective here. The actual prophecy called for a SkyWing, not a RainWing, so the caretakers for the dragonets often called Glory lazy and let her know that she was, at best, a far second choice.  She feels separate from the other dragonets and like the group doesn't think she belongs.  But they head to the rainforest and find out that RainWings DO sleep a lot and that sleeping in the sun is crucial to RainWings, in terms of keeping their spirits and energy levels up.  Their village is amazing, camouflaged in the trees, peaceful and full of fresh fruit to eat.

But Glory's disappointed. No one even noticed that her egg had disappeared years ago. No one is noticing that there are a dozen missing RainWings from the village right now.  The RainWings are peaceful, sure, but they also do appear to be lazy and not willing to protect themselves.  But Glory and her friends are here to fix it.

I thought this book was quite fun to read. Glory is appropriately full of teenage angst.  There is a lot of action and the plot really chugs along. I'm not sure I would have made it past the second book when I was a child, but this book would have pulled me right in.  

 The Dark Secret (Volume Four): Starflight the NightWing is kidnapped and taken to the Night Kingdom where we learn that the NightWings live on a volcano and they are pretty hungry because there's not a lot to eat and many of them are sick.  Starflight has been the most boring of the dragonets so far and he continues to be. He's insecure (which is a theme in all of the books) with his place in the gang, in love with Sunny, likes to read scrolls, speaks in very long, boring sentences, and is pretty sure he doesn't fit it with the NightWings. We meet another NightWing dragonet named Fatespeaker who is wonderful and adorable. We meet Starflight's father, another nerdy dragon.

But all is not well, obviously.  The queen hasn't been seen in years, the NightWings are torturing RainWings, and the volcano is about to erupt.  The dark secret is quite dark and I was not even mildly surprised by it when it came at the end of the book, but I imagine that many young readers will find it quite exciting.   It will be quite interesting to see what happens in the next book to finish out this series.  I'm looking forward to hearing Sunny's POV.

I found this the least compelling book in the series, though. We are with Starflight, who is incredibly boring, for the vast majority of the book and I wanted to see the rest of the gang, too!  Hopefully we rebound to end the series on a winning note.

The Brightest Night: (Volume Five): A satisfying conclusion to the original series. This one was told from the POV of Sunny as she goes around all the dragon kingdoms tying up loose ends and creating world peace.  Thumbs up for a happy ending, although I wasn't super keen on the set up for the next series, which I guess I knew Sutherland had to do. We did spend a lot of time with Sunny here and we didn't get to be with most of the gang, which is sad, but the last third definitely redeemed it.  

So, I don't know that I think this series is amazing, but I can't wait to talk to my nephew about it and slowly give him all the dragon books I love as he gets older!

Squint by Chad Morris & Shelly Brown

Flint is a middle-schooler with an eye condition that forces him to wear glasses, earning him the nickname Squint from his classmates, but even those glasses don't always prevent him from seeing in triple- or quadruple-vision.  Suddenly he has a new friend and he's going on new adventures and he's seeing things in a different light. Squint is the second novel from the Morris/Brown duo and it's absolutely perfection.

Both Squint and his new friend are flawed. They are quite self-obsessed in a way that makes it impossible for them to see problems other people are having or what other people are doing for them. But they are sympathetic in their flawed ways because they have hard lives with problems that people who are much older than them would struggle with.  I have maintained that junior high was a tough time in my life (maybe the toughest) and this novel really gets at why it's so hard. 

There are a lot of comparisons to Wonder by RJ Palacio, which is a novel I also really loved and I thought the comparisons were fair, although maybe it's a bit better than Wonder because the characters seem so much like real children instead of what an author wants children to be like.  If you like Wonder, you'll like this. If you aren't always sold on middle readers, this one might change your mind.  I'm going to keep my eye on the Morris & Brown collab and hope for more great reads out of them.

The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues by Ellen Raskin

Ellen Raskin is best-known in my world as the author of The Westing Game, a children's mystery novel that I have had great fun with in my life.  I'd never heard of The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, though, so I threw into my library stack on impulse when I saw it at a display at the library. 

It, too, is a fun little book. It presents a series of mysteries with our main character, an enigmatic artist named Dickory Dock. She answers an ad for a part-time job and is soon enveloped in a world of puzzling little quandaries.

It's an interesting book because the themes are pretty dark (theft, assault, etc.) and there's mention of Dickory's hard life living in a tenement with parents who are out of the picture, but it's still a young, young adult novel. The mysteries are sophisticated, but wrap up in nice pretty bows at the end, which I imagine would be quite delightful for a young reader. I did not actually figure out the mystery for one of the stories, so, while we can debate how much of a good solver of mysteries I actually am, I think that it demonstrates that Raskin is taking her readers seriously. 

I don't know if I liked this book as much as I liked The Westing Game, but it sure comes close. I'm going to definitely be picking up a copy of both books for one of my nieces for her Christmas books this year.

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

I have two strongly opposing feelings on the classic children's book The Railway Children by E. Nesbit.

On one hand, I can totally see how I would have loved this when I was a new reader. Three siblings go on adventures together, always ending up in the loving arms of their mother. They make friends, they save lives, they solve mysteries, and they do it all together. The importance of family, friendship, and community are powerful in this novel.  It was exciting and it was never clear to me what exactly would happen on the next page.

On the other hand, I am an adult. Who the hell is watching these kids? Why aren't they going to school?  I also am not a big fan that the solution to a bunch of their problems is that an old capitalist with lots of money swoops in and saves them. It's a bit too much of an ode to a problematic form of economy that has left these children in such a state that they are forced to steal coal for me to really get on board with this solution.

So I guess I'm left with the third law of library science - every book its reader. This is not the book for me; I don't think most adults would find it enjoyable. But guess what? It's probably the book for some child out there. And that child should read it.

Garden of the Purple Dragon by Carole Wilkinson

Beware, my friends. Garden of the Purple Dragon by Carole Wilkinson is the second book in a series. This is mostly a standalone novel, but I'm wondering how much more I would have enjoyed it if I'd actually read the first book. 

This is a middle reader, recommended for grades 5 - 8. Basically a girl, Ping, is in charge of the last remaining dragon, Kai, who is a young baby dragon.  In her duties as the dragon's caretaker, Ping winds up in a series of troublesome situations.  There's a pet rat who is more than just a pet rat. There's irksome court politics. There's adventure and frolicking. There's a baby dragon!

The main theme here seems to be about learning and being confident. Kai is learning to be a dragon and Ping is learning how best to communicate with and care for him.  The Emperor is new to his job and has to figure it out.  I liked that Ping was a female character who was strong and resourceful. There are actual mentions about how she's the only person with real authority in the Emperor's inner circle who is a woman and I think it's important to show to young readers that there are still obstacles for women, but they can (sometimes) be overcome.

But, overall, this was meh for me. Again, maybe if I'd been invested in these characters because I'd read the first book, this would be rectified. On the whole, though, it just felt a bit cartoon-y and predictable in its plot.  I can see how it would appeal to young readers and I certainly wouldn't stop anyone from reading it, but I won't be buying it for my nieces or nephews to read any time soon.

Sweet Summer Scent

We pile in the Caravan, dad driving, mom knitting in the passenger seat, sister way in the back, me sandwiched in the middle. He turns on the radio, AM radio. It is the 1990s and you would think we could have at least used an FM station, but no. There's a Cubs game on, wait, no, it's the Cubs pre-game. I stifle a groan, knowing we would listen to the pre-game show, the actual game, and then the post-game. This would take us through to almost the middle of Wisconsin, and I am already bored.

Sister rolls her eyes at me, knowing, as I do, that we will be hearing intermittent cheering and/or cursing for the next five to six hours. She puts her headphones on and I know she is all but gone to me until the car stops again.

Then, as now, I will fall asleep if I don't find something to do to occupy myself. Mom used to make up silly games for us, occasionally even pack a travel board game or two, but for the last couple of road trips, she has simply packed her yarn and needles and left us to our own devices. I start counting out-of-state license plates, reveling in tractor-trailers and U-Hauls. I try to spot signs with all the letters of the alphabet: A in Grand Rapids 15 miles, B in Benton Harbor 70 miles, C in McDonalds next exit. I write them down on a piece of paper. Around the letter R I am done with this game. No one will ever see this list and what is its purpose?

The voices drone on and on about ERAs. I was pretty sure it wasn't in reference to the equal rights amendment.

I pull out a book. I have packed about a dozen books for this trip, knowing I will read them all multiple times. A few are old favorites: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and Black Beauty. Frances Nolan's life in Brooklyn is far removed from mine, but she reads and is smart and finds a way to succeed. I want to be her. Mary Lennox is unpopular and shy and sometimes sarcastic and always misunderstood and I know I am her. Anne Shirley is the anti-Mary Lennox and I marvel and her ability to overcome obstacles, to fit in, and to be everything I am not.

The car slows and the parents are consulting on which fast food place we should eat dinner. Sister votes for Wendy's in the backseat. If she could eat at Wendy's every day, she would. I, as usual, say nothing, knowing that in the pecking order of our family, my desires mean nothing.

As we get out, Wendy's it is, the smell of a newly tarred road is overwhelming. Sister makes a comment about how we should get in the restaurant as soon as possible. I inhale the scent, loving its sharpness, knowing that it is a fresh beginning for the road, and appreciating that this new road will take many travelers, just like us, to new places.

Later, after dinner, we stop for gas. I stand next to the car as the adults pump and wash the windshield, breathing deeply, loving the gasoline and fresh tar smell, vowing that someday I'll stop and enjoy the smell for as long as I want to.

On our first road trip together, as a newly dating couple, Biker Boy and I stood at a gas station, both of us inhaling the tang of gasoline and freshly poured tar. We stood there for several minutes. We had, oddly enough, come from a Wendy's, and this memory came flooding back. I could stand here and smell this as long as I wanted to and this man would let me do so. Already a tiny part of my heart belonged to him, but right then, a large chunk became his.