The Dangerous Gift

The Dangerous Gift by Tui T. Sutherland is a dragon fantasy for 8 year olds narrated, for a while, by the most anxious queen the Ice Kingdom has ever had.

What happens

Snowfall did not expect the crown this young. Her mother died in a plague, her sister has vanished, her cousin is in a cell awaiting trial, and she is now in charge of everybody.

Her plan is simple. IceWings stay in. Everyone else stays out. No more wars, no more summits, no more dragons at all if she can help it.

It is not a good plan and she knows it, which is the joke and the heart of the book at the same time.

Every night she has to stand in the courtyard and reorder a magic wall that ranks every important dragon in the tribe. It used to tell her she was wonderful. Now she's certain it's judging her. She shouts at a scout for thinking, then spends seven minutes worrying about whether she was too harsh and twelve more worrying about whether the worrying makes her a bad queen.

Ever lain awake replaying something you said? Then you'll recognise her instantly.

And then hundreds of strange dragons are spotted flying towards her shore, which is exactly the thing she has spent the whole book dreading.

Reading it feels like being inside somebody's racing head. The capital letters do a lot of work (THE BEST. NOT ON HER WATCH.) and her thoughts contradict themselves mid-paragraph. It's funny and it's uncomfortably accurate about anxiety, which is unusual in a book about dragons.

Here's the thing to know before you start. This one sits a long way into its series and it shows. The opening chapter belongs to different characters on a different continent, with a burnt jungle, mind control and a war you haven't seen. There's a plague, a battle, a dead queen and a sister in a dungeon, all referred to as things that already happened. A child who hasn't read the earlier books will follow Snowfall fine and be lost everywhere else, and none of those earlier books are in the library at the moment.

What to read next

So if what appeals is a big animal fantasy your reader can actually begin at the beginning, try Spirit Animals - Wild Born. Conor is a shepherd's son working off his father's debts as a servant, and his most important birthday is about to go very strangely indeed.