Tigerpetal Press : Book Review: Icefire

The Last Dragon Chronicles Book 2: Icefire by Chris D’Lacey

I liked it; it was good

Here’s book 2 of the series. The first one didn’t have much about the dragons, but I remember vaguely that it starts getting a lot more real in this one. No more squirrels; we’ve moved on to hedgehogs.

Read: November 13 – November 17, 2023

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction
Audience: Children
Book contains: evil witch, pregnancy(?)

Purchase a copy from Amazon.ca

More Dragon Magic in This One

David Rain, twenty-year-old geography student and would-be author (if he can just get a publisher to take Snigger), begins learning more about the secrets residing in the Pennykettle house. After receiving a new special dragon from Lucy, a wishing dragon, David makes a dangerous wish that sends everything around him into action—and with action comes chaos.

This book moves away from the down-to-earth approach of the first one, as while David is still a writer wanting to get his Snigger story published, he takes a break from writing when his mysterious new professor, Dr. Bergstrom, asks him about the Pennykettle dragons and the legend of Gawain. After being assigned an essay on the topic, David does a bit more digging, and with the help of a fellow geography student, Suzanna (Zanna) Martindale, he makes a bit of a mess of things. So much happens in this story, and the magical element skyrockets!

I figured I wouldn’t be able to find a read along for this book, so I just read it the usual way. It’s still short enough that I could skip a session for a day or two.

It’s written in third person again, though it strays from David a lot more than the first book. It really gives the reader a look into what the other characters are doing—including the dragons! Speaking of which, there’s more information concerning dragontongue in this book, and the readers are provided with a few translations (or are given enough context clues to understand the meaning).

I think David is okay as a main character, though he’s a bit hard for me to connect to due to our differences. For one thing, he often skips his college classes, which I, being a hardcore student, wouldn’t do. For another, his romantic life is a bit all over the place, plus he’s sort of messy and puts his attention on different things than I do. Still, he’s a writer, and I also identify as such, so I could connect with him over that. I love how the book also includes the partial manuscripts of the books he’s writing within the narrative. It’s cool to see how his writing evolved from the first book. Lucy and Liz are in this book a lot less as new characters are introduced, and Mr. Bacon gets a lot more “screentime” as it were, with his character evolving as well. One of the new characters is Zanna, a goth girl attending Scrubbly College alongside David. Another is Dr. Bergstrom, a professor coming from the Arctic to teach the class, and who assigns the essay that gets the whole plot rolling. A free trip to the Arctic is on the line for David with this essay. And, of course, a new villain shows up. Well, new in the sense that we haven’t seen her before, though she was mentioned in book 1. I don’t want to give too much away, but she plays a big role and is definitely the overarching antagonist of the series.

The first thing I want to mention is how much more we learn about Henry Bacon’s character in this book. In the first book he was written as a grumpy old librarian who lived next door and hated squirrels, but in this one, we get more into his hobbies, interests, and generally how he is as a person. He is handy with tools, and whenever Liz has any issues, be it with her car, her fuse box, or a literal tornado going through her house, he offers his services, no charge and no questions asked. He is also quite passionate about the Arctic, which turns out to be a godsend for David and his curiosity, so their relationship definitely gets stronger throughout the book. David’s romantic relationships, on the other hand, get sent into chaos. His time with Sophie is cut short, and Zanna comes in quickly afterward—quite forcefully, may I add. It doesn’t sit well with me that David isn’t more forceful in warding her off, seeing as he’s still in a relationship with Sophie, albeit long distance, but I can ignore that, given how the end of the book goes.

Again, writing for children tends to have simpler sentence structure and word choice than for teens or adults, but I love the ample description that’s given in this story. The imagery is sharp and engages all the senses. The lore is kept consistent throughout, which is a hard-and-fast rule for my enjoyment of a story.

I highly recommend for parents to continue this series with their kids if they like the added magic of the story. There continues to be the theme of wildlife and environmental preservation, so it’s great for any children with an interest in that.

The Last Dragon Chronicles Book 2: Icefire by Chris D’Lacey

More Dragon Magic in This One

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