Ember and the Ice Dragons

July 15, 2019
Twelve-year-old Ember tries to save ice dragons and learns her own strength along the way. Infant fire dragon Ember is discovered in Wales by Lionel St. George, a brilliant but error-prone Stormancer and Magician, near the bodies of her slain, fire-dragon parents, hunted down for their valuable scales. To protect her, Lionel casts a spell to disguise Ember as a human child, and she grows up at Chesterfield University, where Lionel teaches. In human form, Ember has the fire dragon's ability to create fire, but she can't control it. Distraught after she burns Lionel's office, Ember decides to live in Antarctica at the research station Lionel's sister runs. Fawcett's story starts out slowly, with a tad too much explanation, but the plot picks up intriguingly as Ember, homesick in Antarctica, is befriended by Nisha, the child of one of the station's scientists, and the mysterious orphan Moss. When Ember learns that there is to be a Winterglass Hunt to kill ice dragons for their scales, she is horrified and determines to sabotage it. Neatly sidestepping tropes and templates, Fawcett's story is full of original details that add depth to the fairly straightforward plot (Montgomery, the enchanted, cantankerous doorknob, is a hoot). But it is the richly nuanced primary and secondary characters, as well as the evenhanded inclusion of females as intelligent scientists, that give the story its richness. The cast is racially varied; Ember, her adoptive family, and Moss read as white while Nisha has brown skin. Fresh and original. (Fantasy. 9-12)

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October 7, 2019

Gr 4-7-In this Victorian fantasy, Ember, an orphaned baby dragon, is rescued by magician Lionel St. George and enchanted to look human so she isn't hunted down like her parents. The jewel-like scales of dragons are an expensive commodity in England and fire dragons like Ember are thought to be extinct. Lionel raises her as his own and all is well until the summer Ember turns 12. The spell that conceals her true identity is wearing thin, and Ember is spontaneously combusting at random moments. To keep safe she decides to visit her Aunt Myra in Antarctica. Ember discovers that Antarctica is not immune to dragon hunters either and now the local ice dragons are near extinction. With two newfound friends, Ember joins the annual Winterglass Hunt in order to covertly sabotage it from the inside. The hunt forces Ember to embrace both sides of her identity and to stop keeping others at a distance. She learns the value of friendship and reconnects with her past in powerful ways. While Ember's redemptive journey to save others from the fate her parents suffered is the main focus, this well-paced adventure also succeeds as an allegory on wildlife conservation. VERDICT This highly readable middle grade fantasy adventure wins with its likable heroine and ecological angle.-Sophie Kenney, Delray Beach Public Library, FL

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