Gr 5-9This is a spirited reading of Patricia Wrede's novel (Harcourt, 1990). The story is acted out by a full cast, including Bruce Coville as two characters. This is a nice departure from the single narrator format used by most books on tape. Princess Cimorene, played by Johanna Elliott, is a strong-willed teenager who resents the dull, prissy life of a princess. She leaves home to avoid marrying a dim-witted prince and becomes the willing captive of Kazul, a cranky but good-hearted dragon. All the fairy tale cliches are heredragons, wizards, magic spellsand Wrede makes gentle fun of them while spinning out a delightful adventure. The deliberately anachronistic dialogue flows well, especially the parts of Cimorene and Alianora (played by Lana M. Quintal), who sound like typical 90's teenage girls. This combination of medieval fairy tale themes and modern teenage sarcasm will appeal to listeners of many ages. The wit and flow of the text make Dealing with Dragons a truly entertaining listen.-Peggy J. Latkovich, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library, OH
Alywn Hamilton’s debut novel, Rebel of the Sands, combines a hardbitten western setting and hardboiled narrative style with eastern myth and a restrictive, patriarchal social structure. Heroine Amani is an orphan forced to live in her brutal uncle’s home, in a tiny, dusty town without prospects. But she’s also a brilliant sharpshooter who dreams of using her talents […]
These days, I find it absurdly easy to slip into despair. (Don’t worry, this post is going to be fun, I promise.) It’s all too common to turn on the news or look at Twitter and then spend the rest of the day staring into the abyss, suffering from a kind of horrified paralysis. (I mean it, this is […]
[ean6]Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede A bored princess goes off to live with a dragon and they have adventures. One, there’s there’s a dragon and that’s always a good thing in a graphic adaptation and, two, there’s the bunny rabbit who keeps changing into something different, and, three, it’s just a great story […]
It takes a lot of books to make a book, and you can safely bet your favorite fantasy author grew up on a steady diet of other authors’ incredible words and worlds. We asked the writers behind 17 of our most anticipated fantasy books to hit shelves January through June to book chat a fantasy […]
There’s a scene in Game of Thrones (I’m talking the television show), an unrelentingly dark fantasy epic, in which a disgraced knight enters a roadside inn demanding chicken. When he’s denied his meat, he declares he will eat every f*****g chicken. Then he kills everyone in the room. It’s hilarious. I prefer fantasy when it […]