Sarwat Chadda’s Fury of the Dragon Goddess is a mythology adventure for 10 year olds about a deli kid from Manhattan on holiday in London with a demon.<\/p>\n
Sik is fourteen and he’s spending the summer in London. His old family friend Daoud is now a famous model, so they’re staying at the Ritz (with a balcony, which Sik is VERY pleased about).<\/p>\n
He hasn’t come alone, though. Rabisu is an ancient Mesopotamian demon with horns under her turban and a tail under her kaftan. Sik is teaching her the rules. Dogs with names are off the menu, for a start.<\/p>\n
It picks up after an earlier adventure in New York, and Sik fills you in as he goes. He’s immortal now, which he mentions almost in passing!<\/p>\n
Then his best friend Belet turns up. She’s the daughter of the goddess Ishtar, she carries a sword that talks back, and within a minute she and Rabisu have smashed up the suite.<\/p>\n
Belet is after a cracked clay tablet her mother chased for centuries. It was looted from a museum in Baghdad and it’s about to be auctioned at a castle in the countryside, to a room full of the worst people in the world. It’s a tablet that can change destinies, and Sik knows exactly what he’d wish for (his big brother Mo back).<\/p>\n
Reading it is a lot like hanging out with Sik. He’s cheeky, he talks straight to you, and he’d honestly rather be back at the deli than creeping round a castle in a tuxedo. Who else would stop in the middle of a heist to check his hair?<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. There’s darker stuff under the jokes. The auction guests include a man wanted for genocide, Belet cheerfully remembers cutting off a demon’s head, and the hostess makes a racist remark about Arabs. Mo died in a motorbike accident three years ago. That’s backstory, not something that happens in the book, but Sik misses him every day.<\/p>\n
For a sensitive reader that might be a lot. If your reader already loves myths and monsters with plenty of laughs, this is a great fit, and there’s lots of Iraqi history woven in too.<\/p>\n
If Sik’s voice is what they love, try The Lightning Thief next. Percy Jackson is another wisecracking narrator who finds out the old myths are alive and well in modern New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sarwat Chadda’s Fury of the Dragon Goddess is a mythology adventure for 10 year olds about a deli kid from Manhattan on holiday in London with a demon. Sik is fourteen and he’s spending the summer in London. His old family friend Daoud is now a famous model, so they’re staying at the Ritz (with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12600,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8388,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Lightning Thief","lr_seo_hook":"A cheeky immortal teen, a demon sidekick and a heist at a castle auction.","lr_series_id":507,"lr_series_name":"Adventures of Sik Aziz","lr_series_position":2,"lr_series_label":""},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[893],"class_list":["post-7481","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-sarwat-chadda"],"yoast_title":"Fury of the Dragon Goddess by Sarwat Chadda | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A cheeky immortal teen, a demon sidekick and a heist at a castle auction. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n