Dragon Slippers

In this Rebecca Caudill 2010 nominee, orphans Creel and her brother must go to live with a poor aunt and uncle who cannot afford two more mouths to feed. Creel’s aunt decides the best solution is to sacrifice Creel to a dragon living in a cave above Carlieff. She hopes a young knight will come to rescue her and take Creel and her family to live with him in his castle. However, the dragon Creel encounters is old and tired and does not wish to fight, so he strikes a bargain with Creel. In return for saving him from a battle with the knight, Creel may choose any pair of shoes from his hoard and then she may leave to go to seek her fortune in the king’s city. She is very talented at sewing and embroidery and hopes to find work in the city and eventually open her own shop. When Creel settles on a beautiful blue pair of slippers that fit like a glove, the dragon is aghast but keeps his promise and Creel sets off for the king’s city. Along the way, a band of young thieves accosts Creel and yet another dragon rescues her. Creel stays with Shardis, the dragon, while she prepares some samples of her work to present to future employers, and they become very good friends. When she finally leaves to begin her new life, she is unprepared for the big city and is nearly taken off to jail when she is rescued by none other than Prince Luka, who becomes her friend.

Creel slowly begins to realize the power of the blue slippers, but it may be too late to save her kingdom, friends, and family when the evil Princess Amalia steals them. How can Creel undo the damage that she has brought to everyone, including the dragons of the kingdom? A fairy tale full of dragons, princes, and adventure, Dragon Slippers is a good read!

Starclimber

In this sequel to Airborn and Skybreaker, Matt Cruse and Kate De Vries take off in another high flying adventure – this time the goal is space!

Matt is working a summer job piloting an aerotug in Paris where France is building the Celestial Tower – a tower designed to reach all the way to outer space. And Kate is preparing to present her talk on the aerozoans,
the electrifying squid/jellyfish they encountered in Skybreaker. But they are excited when both are invited to be part of Canada's space program. First Matt must undergo rigorous training to qualify for the mission, but Kate is guaranteed a spot on board as an expert in high-altitude life-forms.

Only 3 astralnauts are to be chosen, and in the end Matt is not among the top 3. His disappointment is overwhelming until one of the chosen 3 breaks his leg before the launch and Matt is next in line to replace him.

The spaceship, Starclimber, is attached to Earth by an astral cable, a thin cable made of a metal found in only in meteorites. And when the cable fails, the crew of the Starclimber must find a way to pilot the ship back to earth without engines or rockets of any sort or be lost in outer space. Mechanical problems, sabotage, and encounters with strange alien life-forms test their courage and ingenuity.

This is the third book featuring Matt and Kate (the first being Airborn), and like the others, is an exciting read full of peril and strange new creatures.

To read more about this series and see pictures, visit the author's site http://www.airborn.ca/

The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John

One day eleven-year-old Martine is living in cold England where a snowstorm is predicted and the next day she is in hot South Africa where the heat is extreme. Martine cannot believe how quickly her life has changed. Orphaned by a fire that killed her parents in England, she must now go to live with her only relative—a grandmother she did not even know she had and who doesn’t seem to want her. Martine’s loneliness and sorrow are intensified when no one shows to pick her up at the airport and take her to the game preserve that her grandmother owns and operates. Eventually, Tendai, her grandmother’s employee comes and stops on the way home to visit his Aunt Grace, a Zulu healer with the second sight. Grace pronounces that the child (Martine) has the ‘gift’. African legend tells that a child who rides the white giraffe will have power over all the animals. Is this Martine’s destiny? The white giraffe is just a legend—or is it? How can it be that her mother and father never talked of her grandmother and her home in Africa? Why doesn’t grandmother want her? In spite of the way her grandmother feels and the difficulty she has making friends at her new school, why does she feel immediately at home in South Africa, as if that is where she was always supposed to be? Then one night when the white giraffe appears, it seems Grace’s prediction about Martine‘s destiny is about to become reality. Read this Rebecca Caudill 2010 nominee to find out the answer to these questions.