I read a lot of middle grade sci fi/fantasy, and it always surprises me how authors can put new twists on familiar tropes and make something that just screams "kid appeal."
The Shadow Prince, by David Anthony Durham
(September 28th 2021 by Lee & Low) is such a book.
Ash lives in an alternate ancient Egypt, where the gods walk among the mortals, and where solar tech has reached great heights (literally--cool solar powered flying ships!). But there's no reason the gods would want to come to Ash's village, out in the middle of the desert, and though there's solar tech, Ash and his guardian can't afford the cool things Ash would like. Ash's guardian has been training him fiercely all his life, in martial arts, survival, and learning, but Ash can't visualize a future beyond the backwater village that's all he's seen of the world.
On the night of his 12th birthday, that changes. His guardian explains that Ash was born on the same day s Prince Khufu, making him a candidate for the honor of serving as the princes shadow--a companion for life, tasked with protecting, and even dying, for the prince. And the next day a solar barge arrives to take Ash and his mentor to the royal capital, where the candidates will be pitted against each other. There can only be one shadow prince.
And so Ash takes part in five days of tests, each day orchestrated by a different deity. Demon slaying, battle with monsters, and impossible tasks await. It is expected that many candidates will be killed. Ash doesn't give himself great odds, but he's determined to try, and as he begins to see in Khufu someone he'd be glad to serve, his resolve stiffens.
Some of the other contenders are friendly, and form an alliance with Ash. Others are determined to win at any cost. And this group of shadow prince contenders faces an additional challenge. The god Set does not want any of them to survive, and uses his powers of chaos to interfere with the tests, making them even more horrendous, and there's tension in the royal family that also adds to the danger the kids are in.
It's tremendously gripping and readers who love dangerous contests will of course be hooked! The violence is not so great, though, that it will be off-putting to those who prefer more character-driven books; though the trials are violent they don't pit the kids directly against each other until the very last day, and there's plenty of time for Ash to develop the first real friendships of his life, and have his mind blown by the royal city and all its panoply.
So basically lots of really exciting stuff happens, some of it tense, some entertaining (I loved Prince Khufu's fierce little bouncing hippo protectors), and Ash is a good kid who's easy to cheer for. There are a lot of characters introduced, but the important ones are easy to track of. The Egyptian gods are incredibly powerful, and idiosyncratically weird, adding entertainment value and a Riordan-esque feel to the story. I loved the solar-punk alternate Egypt too--it was just straight out really cool.
Short answer-this book gave me Wings of Fire vibes, even though I can't do a point by point argument for this. Give it to your sixth graders, and they will love it!
(added kid appeal bonus--one of the contenders who are Ash's friends is a young lioness....)
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
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