Fox Snare (Thousand Worlds #3), by Yoon Ha Lee

Another very busy week for me, with none of the reviews I wanted to write being written...so here once more is a quick one before I post today's round up.

Fox Snare (Thousand Worlds #3), by Yoon Ha Lee, is the third installment of great space adventure for upper middle grade readers on up (but do read the first two books in the series first).

Min, the fox spirt who was the central character of Dragon Pearl, is now the keeper of that titular pearl, which can magically terraform in hospitable planets.  Before this, terraforming relied on Dragon magic, and now the Dragons are unhappy that they now outclassed.  Haneuol, a young dragon, was once Min's friend, and when she arrives on the vessel where Min is currently in residence as part of the Dragon delegation to important diplomatic negations with the leader of the Sun Clan nations, Min hopes they can rekindle their relationship, but it doesn't go well. Sebin, the non-binary tiger spirit who was the central character of Tiger Honor, is a cadet on this same ship, and finds themselves drawn into the diplomatic tensions as well.

The leaders of the Thousand Worlds want to use Min and the pearl to terraform a planet that lies at a crucial junction between the two hostile factions...but it's not just location that makes this planet a prize both sides want--long ago an immensely powerful war ships crashed there, and whichever side can recover it will have a huge military advantage.

Then the space station where the negotiations are being held explodes.  Min, Haneuol, and Sabin crash land on the contested planet, along with a fox spirit woman who is clearly a suspicious character, and whose own agenda is occluded by her fox gift of charm.  Travelling across this alien world to the site of the crashed warship, Min is troubled by the conflict between her loyalty to the Thousand Worlds and her desire to trust another Fox, Sabin is torn between strict adherence to duty and critical examination of what is happening, and Haneul must wrestle with familial expectations and her own wishes.

And then they reach the ship, and things get enormously more tense as the threesome realizes the truth about why it was never recovered, and just what the Fox spirit woman has planned.

Told in alternating points of view by Min and Sebin, this is a gripping read in which the character's personal conflicts and the external dangers are beautifully balanced, and the magical abilities of the shape shifters, and some unexpected supernatural elements, make for lovely reading.  This installment is more direct than the previous book in identifying the Thousand Worlds as being of Korean descent, and the Sun Clans as being Japanese, making it an even more thought-provoking read. 

My only worry is that this seems to be the final book about these characters and their universe, and that thought makes me sad.  On the other hand, I can look forward to a nice re-read....

Three Tasks for a Dragon, by Eoin Colfer, illustrated by P.J. Lynch

My five star goodreads review for Three Tasks for a Dragon, by Eoin Colfer, illustrated by P.J. Lynch (October 3, 2023, Candlewick), is as follows--"a lovely book--both the words and the pictures gave me great pleasure. If I had someone in my life who loved beautiful fairy tale/dragon books, they would be getting this as a gift."  

It is the story of Prince Lir, who doesn't particularly want to become the next Wolfhound King--he is a scientist at heart, and the wolfhounds don't even come when he summons them, the way they are supposed to do for the true king, and the way they came for his stepbrother.  So she has him sent away on a quest.....and his reaction made me love him--

"Lir was already heartsore at the thought of leaving his beloved Ladin, most especially his friends in the small scientific community who were building a giant spyglass that would enable the watcher to clearly observe the face of the moon. 

I will never see the moon clearly, he thought." p 7

Lir suspects that dark magic might be afoot, and indeed there is, but there is nothing for him to do but go on a quest to save a maiden from a dragon.

And then this fairy tale goes in all sorts of unexpected direction--the maiden, Cethlenn, is better off working for the dragon than she was before, and she knows it, and the dragon, beset by physical ailments, is sorely in need of Lir's practical, scientific mind. So Cethlenn, the dragon, and Lir end up peacefully coexisting for a while...

Until the instigator of the dark magic Lir suspected was afoot arrives, and brings disaster.  There is a happy ending, but it is tense for a while.

There's more complexity of both character and plot to the story, but I'm not spoiling it.  Suffice to say it is a wonderful read for the romantic, castle dreaming youngster such as I was at 9 ish years old, and a pleasure for even the more cynical, ex-castle dreaming adult such as I am now!  The story carries one along, and the illustrations are lovely.  My only quibble is that I would have liked more words--this is lots more than a picture book, word-wise, but not quite even as long as novella.

In any event, I stand by my first reaction--this would be a great present for the right reader.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

NB--Three Tasks for a Dragon is eligible for this year's Cybils Awards in Elementary/Middle Grade speculative fiction, and has not yet been nominated.  Lots of other fine books haven't been nominated either; here are a few of them.  Please show book love by nominating here before the end of the day on October 15th!

The Lost Ryū, by Emi Watanabe Cohen

What with the hectic rush of family Christmas at my mother's house, and the frantic rush to deal with all the piles of paper that accumulated at work while I was gone, it's been hard to actually sit at the computer and write a review (this is my first review since mid-December...).  But the books aren't going to review themselves, and I have a couple I got review copies of for the Cybils Awards that I liked lots, so here I am.

The Lost Ryū by Emi Watanabe Cohen (middle grade, June 2022,  Levine Querido) is about dragons-the ryū of the title.  There were once massive dragons flying over Japan, but after WWII those dragons vanished and only little companion dragons remain. Ten year old Kohei has a little dragon, Yuharu, whom he loves; the new neighbor girl, half Japanese, half Russian Isolde, who has just moved from the US, has a Yiddish speaking dragon named Cheshire.  These dragons are charming. 

It is about much more than charming dragons, though, and more also than the story of the friendship that develops between the two kids (though Isolde's uncomfortable life experience of never belonging and how she deals with it was a great part of the book).  At its heart is a story of intergenerational trauma, tied to dragon magic and the challenges of belonging, to make for very moving reading.

Kohei's family (him, his mother, and his maternal grandfather) has secrets.  He barely remembers his father, who died when he was three, but he does have a memory of seeing one of the last of the great dragons.  Following a trail of snippets of information and considerable intuition, he sets out with Isolde to find the ryū his grandfather loved and lost, to dispel the miasma of past trauma hanging over his family. 

It is a magical journey of impossible wonder--the realism (with small dragons) of the first part of the book becomes lovely, full-blown fantasy.  For Kohei the quest is a bright flare of refusal to accept his mother's creed of  ‘shikata ga nai’ (“there’s nothing to be done --just keep existing without fighting) and his grandfather's drinking and anger.  It is his father's words, words that he treasures, that keep him going--

‘Do not quit. You must keep trying to make things better, Kohei, because there are always good things you can do.’

And gee but that is a message that so many of us need to remember, and if we can be reminded while reading about lovely ryū in Japan, adventuring with two brave kids, so much the better.

short answer--come for the smart, funny, loyal little dragons, stay for big dragons and big heart!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils Award consideration

Dragon Realm books 1-3 by Katie Tsang and Kevin Tsang, for Timeslip Tuesday

In an unusual Timeslip Tuesday post, I have a series of three books to offer--the Dragon Realm series, by Katie Tsang and Kevin Tsang.  (nb: the dates I give are for the US publication).  

Four kids meet in China and begin the adventure of a lifetime in  Dragon Mountain  (November 2020).  They find the secret way inside a mountain of legend where four dragons have been trapped by powerful magic, and form heart bonds, pairing each kid to a dragon.  The dragons are made stronger by the bonds, and the kids gain powers of their own....and together this team might be strong enough to defeat the Dragon of Death, who will destroy both the dragon and human realms if she isn't stopped.

And to do that, in the second book, Dragon Legend (September 2021), the kids and dragons travel in back in time to the dragon realm, to face the Dragon of Death on her home turf and save one of the boys, who has been kidnapped....as well as various fantastical adventures in the dragon realm, there's a visit to the imperial palaces of ancient China that's a lovely bit of time travel goodness!

But the time slippiness of the series really gets going in book 3, Dragon City (April 2022) when the kids and their dragons are swept into the future that awaits if the Dragon of Death succeeds.  It's a horrible place, where the city is the only place where life persists, and but that life force is sucked up by the evil dragon queen to fuel her strength.  The kids are separated from their dragons, and one of the dragons has turned to the dark side, but nevertheless they persist, and with help from some unexpected allies, and an even more unexpected magical force, they overthrow the Dragon of Death and her horrible future is no more.  

The kids and their dragons (even the one who turned evil, who was redeemed) return to their own time....and both the dragon and human realms are safe once more.

So time travel isn't the point of the series (the point being brave kids bonded with dragons, magical powers, and evil to be conquered) but the time travel does work well to provide an interesting scaffolding for the plot and the world building. It is tremendously easy to picture the target audience loving the books lots (and wanting dragon bonds of their own!).  Happily for these readers, the adventures continue with afresh  with Dragon Rising and Dragon Destiny.

Short answer-- prefect for younger middle grade kids who want lots of maigcal action and adventure, but are not ready or willing to read large tomes, with bonus time travel to raise the stakes!