We got the twins into checking out books online from the Chicago Public Library, and I've got the Libby app installed on my phone. While looking for books to recommend for the kids, I stumbled across Wings of Fire - The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland. I checked it out so that I could check it out (ain't I clever?). This is a kid's novel about a world pretty much ruled by dragons. There's a big ol' dragon war going on led by three competing claims to the throne of the Sandwing kingdom (Queendom? Dragons appear to have a matriarchal society.). Different breeds/races of dragons have formed various alliances, and the types of dragons include Skywings, Mudwings, Seawings, Nightwings, Icewings, and Rainwings. The Talons of Peace have a prophecy that five particular dragonets (one each Sandwing, Skywing, Mudwing, Seawing, and Nightwing - fuck the Rainwings and Icewings, apparently) will band together to somehow bring peace to dragon world. The five of them are being kept hidden away under a mountain (except that the Skywing egg was broken before hatching, so they just replaced it with a Rainwing egg), but they're itching to get out. This is the first in what appears to be a lengthy series of Wings of Fire books. It's a bit much for the twins (they turn 7 next month), but they are reading the graphic novelization versions of the books.
Anyway, I actually read the whole thing. I recently read somewhere that if you're reviewing kids'/young adult books, you need to keep in mind the audience. I try to do that here, because the book was fundamentally pretty silly. The dragons have talons and claws at the ends of their arms, yet they have fine art and some architecture. Some of them wear jeweled clothes. They have obvious names (Clay is the main Mudwing, Tsunami is the main Seawing, etc.). The prose is not directed toward a 50 year old reader. If I were a kid, though, maybe I'd enjoy them. There's plenty of action and young dragonet angst. The book read really quickly. I'm not planning on reading any more, but if you have a 10 year old or so kid who wants some dragon-based fantasy, you could do worse.
These were available on the library app, so I checked out the sample. Seems pretty good, so I got the twins to look at them. I think girl twin got to it first (boy is on the waiting list), and I don't know how much she's actually reading. She's definitely getting some of it (she excitedly told me the other day that Max was a girl), but she has a tendency to skip over harder parts. Boy is a stronger reader, and I suspect he'll get into it when it's his turn.El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 12:45 pm Read book 1 and book 2 of the Max and the Midknights series at my son's request. It was really cute how excited he was to have me read it - "Have you gotten to the part with the dragon yet?" "have you met Conrad yet?" etc.
Books were solid well written kid graphic novels. Also was interesting to read an interview with the author (Lincoln Peirce) about the series. One early semi-twist is that Max is a girl. And apparently it was set up that way because the author and his friends (including Dev Pilkey of Dog Man and Stephan Pastis of Pearls Before Swine) realized that they've been pegged as "boy book authors", that only boys showed up to their book events, etc., so Lincoln wanted to write a book with a girl protagonist without it getting pigeonholed as a book only for girls.
Anyway, would recommend the books for people's kids.