The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey
December 28th 2009 06:23
Reading Level -- 4 -- definitely a higher level book
Length --approx 300 pages
Chapter Book -- no pictures
Warnings : magic, animal illness/death
Rating: 5 Stars!!
Yep, there's been a serious jump in my daughter's reading, so this book is another level up! I bought it on a whim (because the cover caught my eye) and was happy to discover that the story lived up to the title.
The first in a series by D'Lacey, this book introduces us to Liz and Lucy Pennykettle, who open the story by opening their doors to a new college student tenant, David. While David adjusts to life in the Pennykettle house, and forms a close bond with the Pennykettle women, he is constantly slightly uncertain about the many clay dragons that pepper the house. ( While Liz is definitely more of a mother figure than a love interest, a nearby animal rescue specialist -- Sophie -- becomes a slight love interest for David later in the book.) Liz makes the dragons and sells them at craft fairs, but David is certain there is something "odd" about the dragons. (You, the reader, are clued in that the dragons just MIGHT be alive -- but David seems a bit slow to catch on. This is really laying out the plot for future books, and plays a minor role in the first one.)
As a plot line, in his VAST amounts of spare time (unusually so for a college student -- interestingly attending class seems to be not only optional, but very minor for David,) David assits Lucy in investigating the disappearance of local squirrels. In the process, he decides to write a story book as a birthday present for Lucy. Obviously, the squirrels that take so much of her attention make a good cast of characters. To help David out, Liz gifts him a dragon of his own -- Gadzooks -- a "writing" dragon, who scribbles an odd word or name on his clay tablet when David lets his imagination run away with him. In the end, David and Lucy solve the squirrel mystery, and everyone lives happily ever after -- with the exception of one squirrel, who, suffering from kidney failure, has a short happy life in the wild before he passes away.
The story itself is fairly harmless -- not scary, and fairly well written. It draws the reader in, and you begin to care not only about David, Liz, and Lucy -- but also about the squirrels. This first step in the series really only hints about dragons -- a few basic stories are told, we discover that dragon names all must start with "G," and a few clues/mysteries are spread out to pique the readers' interest. If your early reader isn't interested in fantasy, this story still may work for them.
As far as warnings go, this first book is fairly safe - nothing that is challenging aside from the length, but it reads quickly. One of the squirrels does die in the end of the book, so death is approached, but it's handled fairly gently. David does develop a crush on the animal rescue "lady," and eventually asks her out -- and she becomes his "girlfriend," but that relationship really plays almost no role in the story itself. The one big warning I'd give is that this is the first in a series -- and the series itself doesn't remain quite so "warm and safe."
Overall, though, I'd give this one an A -- and my daughter loved it so much that her Christmas wish was for a "clay dragon" of her own!
Length --approx 300 pages
Chapter Book -- no pictures
Warnings : magic, animal illness/death
Rating: 5 Stars!!
Yep, there's been a serious jump in my daughter's reading, so this book is another level up! I bought it on a whim (because the cover caught my eye) and was happy to discover that the story lived up to the title.
The first in a series by D'Lacey, this book introduces us to Liz and Lucy Pennykettle, who open the story by opening their doors to a new college student tenant, David. While David adjusts to life in the Pennykettle house, and forms a close bond with the Pennykettle women, he is constantly slightly uncertain about the many clay dragons that pepper the house. ( While Liz is definitely more of a mother figure than a love interest, a nearby animal rescue specialist -- Sophie -- becomes a slight love interest for David later in the book.) Liz makes the dragons and sells them at craft fairs, but David is certain there is something "odd" about the dragons. (You, the reader, are clued in that the dragons just MIGHT be alive -- but David seems a bit slow to catch on. This is really laying out the plot for future books, and plays a minor role in the first one.)
As a plot line, in his VAST amounts of spare time (unusually so for a college student -- interestingly attending class seems to be not only optional, but very minor for David,) David assits Lucy in investigating the disappearance of local squirrels. In the process, he decides to write a story book as a birthday present for Lucy. Obviously, the squirrels that take so much of her attention make a good cast of characters. To help David out, Liz gifts him a dragon of his own -- Gadzooks -- a "writing" dragon, who scribbles an odd word or name on his clay tablet when David lets his imagination run away with him. In the end, David and Lucy solve the squirrel mystery, and everyone lives happily ever after -- with the exception of one squirrel, who, suffering from kidney failure, has a short happy life in the wild before he passes away.
The story itself is fairly harmless -- not scary, and fairly well written. It draws the reader in, and you begin to care not only about David, Liz, and Lucy -- but also about the squirrels. This first step in the series really only hints about dragons -- a few basic stories are told, we discover that dragon names all must start with "G," and a few clues/mysteries are spread out to pique the readers' interest. If your early reader isn't interested in fantasy, this story still may work for them.
As far as warnings go, this first book is fairly safe - nothing that is challenging aside from the length, but it reads quickly. One of the squirrels does die in the end of the book, so death is approached, but it's handled fairly gently. David does develop a crush on the animal rescue "lady," and eventually asks her out -- and she becomes his "girlfriend," but that relationship really plays almost no role in the story itself. The one big warning I'd give is that this is the first in a series -- and the series itself doesn't remain quite so "warm and safe."
Overall, though, I'd give this one an A -- and my daughter loved it so much that her Christmas wish was for a "clay dragon" of her own!
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