Fire by Robin McKinley - ADVISABLE

McKinley, Robin and Peter Dickinson Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits, 297 p. Putnam (Penguin), 2009. $19.99. 

Language: PG (5 swears). 

McKinley and Dickinson have written five stories based around the idea of fire as an elemental spirit. One is a fabulous look at the legend of the Phoenix and another is about a young lady who adopts a dog from a shelter, but the dog may just be something else all together. My favorite story of them all is “First Flight”, a story involving a blundering young man who doesn’t know what a wants to do with his life, his pet foogit that he rescued when it was young and the boy’s older brother who is supposed to be taking his first flight through Firespace – but that requires a dragon with three working eyes, and he has been assigned a dragon with only two eyes. 

I wish this particular story were a full length novel – I would really love to read more about this world and about the brothers in particular! An eye-catching title for a fantasy collection! 

MS, HS – ADVISABLE. Cindy, Library-Teacher