tional ties and ethical dilemmas, creating a novel that asks far bigger questions than it answers. Ages 14–up. Agent:
John Cusick, Greenhouse Literary Agency.
(Mar.)
Dragonbride
Raani York. CreateSpace, $14.99 paper
(424p) ISBN 978-1-5002-3210-8
First in the planned Dragon Chronicles
trilogy, York’s fantasy has its merits but
doesn’t entirely hit its mark. Raised as
the only magician in the world, a
16-year-old named Shalima learns that
she must fulfill an ancient prophecy and
become the bride of the Golden Dragon,
the king of all dragons and protector of
good in the world. Shalima quickly
comes to love Dragan, the Golden
Dragon’s human form, but their wedded
bliss is interrupted by the arrival of the
Kalman, the Golden Dragon’s evil counterpart. York’s worldbuilding is rich in
detail, and her cast of characters is widely
diverse, but meandering writing (“As a
Princess, my position definitely was
higher than theirs, but this was not a
matter of rank. They were close friends
and very brave, but I needed space”) and a
lack of character development overshadow these strengths. Unfortunately,
the characters’ struggle to defeat the
Kalman amounts to an exercise in being
in the right place at the right time and
deciphering prophecies that spell out
exactly what’s going to happen. Ages 14–
up. (BookLife)
Nonfiction
The Red Bicycle:
The Extraordinary Story
of One Ordinary Bicycle
Jude Isabella, illus. by Simone Shin. Kids Can,
$18.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-77138-023-2
Blending fiction and nonfiction,
Isabella (Chitchat) chronicles a bicycle’s
long journey as it transforms lives across
continents. A North American boy named
Leo diligently saves up his money to buy a
bike he calls Big Red. After Leo outgrows
Big Red, he donates it to an organization
that sends needed bicycles abroad. Via
truck and freighter, Big Red makes its
way to Burkina Faso and a girl named
Alisetta, who uses it to aid her family’s
“was born in a hovel on the banks of the
Tyne, as so many of us were back then,”
his quick mind has opened up to him a
wider world of ideas and the chance to be
the first in his family to attend college.
Like good and bad angels on either
shoulder, however, are his friends, Holly
Stroud, an eccentric child of the middle-class, and Vincent McAlinden, an incorrigible and sometimes frightening troublemaker who shares the Halls’
blue-collar background. Dom is drawn
in opposite directions by these two as he
negotiates a difficult, sometimes dangerous world. Almond’s characteristic
penetrating writing and finely drawn
characters are on full display in a story
more fully grounded in a specific and
important historical moment than anything he has published heretofore. Ages
14–up. (Mar.)
★ We All Looked Up
Tommy Wallach. Simon & Schuster, $17.99
(384p) ISBN 978-1-4814-1877-5
An asteroid named Ardor is on course
to destroy the world. As four Seattle
teenagers count down the weeks until
impact, they wrestle with the meaning of
their lives and their possible deaths.
Peter, a basketball golden boy, must
decide if he should save his sister from
her nihilistic boyfriend and whether true
love is worth ignoring the status quo.
Eliza, a photographer with an unseemly
reputation, negotiates her father’s cancer
diagnosis, her mother’s abandonment,
and the need to chronicle the chaos
erupting around her, while finding her-
self drawn to Peter. Rounding out the
story’s rotating voices are Anita, a
straight-A student who just wants to
sing, and Andy, a slacker who must
decide where his loyalties lie and how to
handle his dangerous friends. Debut nov-
elist Wallach increases the tension
among characters throughout, ending in
a shocking climax that resonates with
religious symbolism. Stark scenes alter-
nating between anarchy and police states
are counterbalanced by deepening emo-
ticularly through Grisha’s encounters with
bullies at school; Grisha’s unwillingness to
kiss a girl on a dare and his involvement
with the theater are enough for the stu-
dents to tease him, believing he is gay.
Grisha’s grandfather also figures impor-
tantly as Grisha grapples with his sexu-
ality: “When I’m next to him, I always feel
like something’s wrong with me. That I’m
worse than I really am.” His uncertainty
about his feelings for an actor named Sam
unfold gradually, with Wilke allowing
space for Grisha to better understand him-
self. Grisha’s voice is authentic and soulful,
and his descriptions of the vibrant world of
the puppet theater, his refuge, are sump-
tuous. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)
The Storyspinner
Becky Wallace. S&S/McElderry, $17.99
(432p) ISBN 978-1-4814-0565-2
Political games meet magical intrigue
in this Portuguese-flavored fantasy debut,
first in a planned series. After Johanna
Von Arlo’s father dies during a high-wire
act, her family tries to scrape by in their
home of Santarem. When Lord Rafael
DeSilva mistakes Johanna for a (male)
poacher and attacks her, he incurs a debt
of honor and offers her employment as a
Storyspinner. Meanwhile, in the neighboring mage-run nation of Olinda, Jacaré
of the Elite Guard realizes that the heir of
Santarem is in danger and that, without
her, the magical barrier that separates
these two lands will collapse. Jacaré
crosses into Santarem in search of the lost
princess, a search made all the more
urgent when he discovers that girls who
resemble the heiress are being murdered.
Chapters shift among several viewpoints,
keeping the action lively but diluting the
narrative, and readers are asked too readily
to accept a relationship between Johanna
and a man who beat her into unconsciousness and, even when he’s trying to make
amends, “itched to slap the smug grin off
her face.” Ages 14–up. Agent: Jennifer
Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
(Mar.)
★ The Tightrope Walkers
David Almond. Candlewick, $17.99 (336p)
ISBN 978-0-7636-7310-9
In a powerfully realistic bildungsroman from award-winning author
Almond (The True Tale of the Monster Billy
