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Jennifer Lynn Alvarez's Across the Dark Water is a jungle fantasy for 8 year olds about a boy who's afraid of heights in a clan that fights on winged horses.
Rahkki is twelve and the shortest boy in the Fifth Clan. He looks after his big brother Brauk's flying stallion, Kol, and he loves the winged horses more than anything. But flying makes his stomach clench. And tomorrow he's being sent away to work on his uncle's rice farm, because the brothers need the money.
Across the ocean, a young silver mare called Echofrost is leading more than a hundred wild pegasi away from a terrible war at home. They fly for days through storms, with sharks circling below, hoping for somewhere free and safe.
They find land at last. Jungle, volcanoes, a huge black dragon drooling by a pond. And a village full of two-legged Landwalkers who ride pegasi of their own and very much want to catch some more.
The book swaps between the boy and the mare, and that's what makes it such a page-turner. You know both sides. You want Rahkki to see the wild herd, and you really want the herd to get away!
The pegasi are wonderful characters. They argue, they grieve and they make terrible jokes (one stallion's coat is so shiny he's "visible from space"). If your reader loves horse stories, this is horses with wings, feathers and attitude.
There's a lot of fighting in the air, with arrows, clubs and ropes. The pegasi talk about friends and family who died in the war behind them. And Rahkki's mother, the old queen, was murdered by the woman who's queen now, who once went for Rahkki himself when he was four. It's told as backstory, but it's dark.
For a reader who's ready for a bit of danger, it's thrilling. And a lonely boy who's scared of heights is very easy to love.
If they're hooked on creatures that fly and humans who can't be trusted, try Dragon Rider, which begins with a rat racing into a cave to warn the dragons that humans are coming for their valley.
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