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A magical and enchanting tale of adventure, The Color of Dragons by R.A. Salvatore and Erika Lewis will likely intrigue readers of Christopher Paolini or Anne McCaffrey. Besides a story about finding one’s self, Salvatore and Lewis tell a story about love, loyalty, and other things worth fighting for. Seventeen-year-old Maggie and Griffin are both orphans trying to find their place in the world. Just as Griffin must decide if his place is with the corpulent and greedy King Umbert serving as his champion: “Sir Griffin, the mighty Draignoch Slayer” (92), Maggie must determine whether she owes allegiance to Xavier, the magician and perhaps theRead More →

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In my reading of the first three chapters of book one in Julie Kagawa’s newest trilogy, Shadow of the Fox, I knew immediately that I was not from this discourse community.  Many of the Japanese words—such as shinobi, daimyo, oni, and kodama—were beyond my linguistic experience, so their meanings eluded me.  I would have appreciated a glossary, although other terms—such as tetsubo, Jigoku, kami, and yokai were translatable from context clues or were clarified through a character’s explanation, although some of these explanations occurred more than a hundred pages in. Adding to my frustration, I felt like I was reading three separate stories, until theRead More →

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Readers who like plots that revolve around danger and destiny and who enjoyed the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan will likely find Tera Lynn Childs’ trilogy riveting.  The major difference in the two text sets is the genders of the protagonists and the prominent roles played by mythological monsters—like the manticore, harpies, or Gegenees giant, rather than just gods and goddesses. The second book in Childs’ series, Sweet Shadows, which features Greer, Gretchen, and Grace—the Key Generation—tells the story of the shadow life of the triplet sisters and their mythological legacy.  The diversity of the three girls represents a Pythagorean balance—appropriate for this trinityRead More →