Book Recommendations and Helpful Dogs

Hiiii lovely everyone!

It’s been a minute (or, you know, four years! heavens!) since I last blogged, but does it count that I think about blogging fairly often? (No?) 😊 Actually, for a while I’ve been thinking about starting a newsletter — fun idea, maybe? Then I could essentially go back to writing my blog, but in the form of an email, and wouldn’t that be a friendly way to send people book recommendations and pictures of my silly dogs? 😊

So about a month ago I started noodling around with setting that up and ran right into two problems: (a) my normal blog length is too long for emails, apparently (ha ha, hmm, probably should have seen that coming!) and (b) newsletters are only for readers 16 and up (like, legally!). Which makes sense! I don’t want my 12-year-old handing out his email to people on the internet either! But how do I make sure only people over 16 sign up for the newsletter? Where do I put a note about that? What do I say?

Being me, I worried about this (and bothered people about this) perhaps more than necessary, and it was also the absolute silliest timing because I had a July 31 deadline for an entire new book (ha ha ha!). Which I did actually (miraculously) finish! (But it needs much fixing, so I will tell you more about that when it’s a little more presentable!)

But the summer is drifting away and I really wanted to post something about summer reading, especially to recommend some books and also do a giveaway. I have things I want to give to awesome readers out there, such as tiny dragons! (More on this below!) So for now I have fled back to the safety of my blog (where I can ramble as long as I like!) 😊 and I promise I will figure out the newsletter eventually.

Summer is the time of year I most want to stay inside and read, because in many ways I’m absolutely an IceWing in the rainforest (heat! bugs! pollen! sunscreen! ticks! allergies! the outdoors is out to get me! ack!). 

Or Captain Picard when he’s forced to go on vacation – I’m watching Star Trek: The Next Generation these days (yes, all of it! for the first time! it’s an assignment from my editor! it’s research!) and I thought I could not adore this captain more, until I came to a scene of him grumpily trying to read a book by the pool while people are screaming and splashing and running nearby.  SO RELATABLE, oh my goodness, I love him madly.

And the best thing about summer (at least, for people who normally have to read school assignments all year long) is that you can read WHATEVER YOU WANT.

So to celebrate summer reading, I thought I’d share a list of some of my favorite books.  And then I thought: oooo, one of my talented genius children is home for a week with nothing to do!  I could enlist him to take photos of awesome books posed with our adorable dogs!  Ooooo, what a clever plan, that way I’ll end up with adorable photos and it’ll totally keep him busy while I get some WRITING done!

HA HA HA HA HA let’s just say, this plan did not exactly unfold as I’d hoped.

Yeah, IIIIII forgot about the part where one of our dogs is terrible at this!  She’s the world’s least agreeable dog model!  Ridiculously cute and yet also EXTREMELY unwilling to put her butt where you want her to put it! 

Plus when we can get her to look at the camera, she has resting “I can’t believe you did this to me” face. 

The other dog, of course, is a perfect angel who will pose perfectly in any silly costume you ask him to. 

So, the end result was: two days, maybe three usable photos for Instagram, zero words written, one very disgruntled photographer, one entirely bewildered dog, and one dog who can’t even believe we went through all this nonsense when we could have just had him be the star of everything, as is clearly his destiny.

(In case you missed it, the books they were trying to recommend are:

Dory Fantasmagory, by Abby Hanlon

The Blackwoods, by Brandy Colbert

Star-Crossed, by Barbara Dee

You Should See Me In a Crown, by Leah Johnson)

So I abandoned that project and instead asked the dragonets (much more agreeable models) to choose some of their favorite dragon (or dragon-adjacent) books…

…and would you believe Clay picked one of my favorite books of all time, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin!  I KNOW, what a wild coincidence, but it is genuinely amazing and perfect and everyone should read it (and yes, it is also Hazel’s favorite book in the Wings of Fire Guide. Listen, sometimes you find a perfect book and everyone needs to be told about it multiple times, you know?).

Sunny chose The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill, which is full of the absolute cutest tiniest dragons and I madly want to live in this world and play with them!

Starflight picked The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill (another tiny dragon, and such a great story!) and Glory chose Nimona, by N.D. Stevenson (I also talk about this book a lot, but that’s because it’s brilliant and hilarious and I am very sure you would all love it).

Tsunami opted for a trio of sea-themed books (no dragons, but mermaids and selkies and narwhals!) for different ages, all of which would be awesome summer reading:

Ben Clanton’s Narwhal and Jellyfish series

Lisa Stringfellow’s A Comb of Wishes (sinister mermaids!)

Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Girl from the Sea (a book everyone in my family read and loved!)

Now, some of you might be asking, wait, what are those little dragons? Is that a STARFLIGHT I COULD WEAR ON MY WRIST? Or a Glory I could clip to a backpack?! Why yes! We now have official little dragon merch (woo hoo!), both in the form of Cutie Cuffs and Plush Danglers. They are very cute and (hopefully) available at Target, and all my royalties from the toy sales will be donated to help protect the Amazon rainforest in partnership with the Amazon Investor Coalition.

The Amazon Investor Coalition is a network of change agents working to reduce the economic drivers of deforestation in the Amazon region of South America. They work to ensure the forest is worth more alive and standing than cut and burned.  Protecting the Amazon rainforest is vitally important to the well-being of our whole planet — and I figured the RainWings would agree! 😊 So every time you buy a little Wings of Fire dragon, you’re helping save a tree or a sloth or something else Kinkajou loves. Visit www.AmazonInvestor.org to learn more — I’m excited to be working with them and for the dragons to contribute to their efforts! 

I know they’re not always easy to find, though, and I have my own stash of them here, which my husband keeps side-eyeing like, “are we . . . decorating the house with crates of small dragons now?” Also, I’d like to know what everyone else is reading and loving this summer, SO, I thought, let’s do a giveaway! Tiny dragons for lovely readers, yay!

(Please note these forms have to be filled out by someone 18 or older! No kids’ email addresses, please!)

For parents & guardians:  Tell me five books your young reader has read this year by filling out this form by September 15: 

Wings of Fire Book and Plush Giveaway

And then in late September we’ll randomly select three of you to receive:

• a signed copy of the new limited edition of Wings of Fire book one and
• a complete set of the eight Wings of Fire plush danglers*

* Since these come in mystery boxes and there’s no way to tell what’s inside, I’m going to have to open them ahead of time in order to make sure you get one of each – I hope that’s OK!

For teachers and school librarians:  Same question – tell me some books you’ve read and loved recently (for any age; I read everything!) in this form by September 15:

Wings of Fire Set of Books Giveaway

And we’ll draw three winners to receive a complete set of the Wings of Fire novels for your classroom or school library.

I’m excited!  I love sending people books!  My husband is also excited!  He loves me sending away books instead of letting them pile up around him like a blanket fort made of dragons and pages!  😊

I hope everyone has had / is having a wonderful summer full of reading — I’ll be back again soon (is the plan!) with news about fall books and events and proooooooobably some more photos of silly dogs.

Hugs and dragons to all of you!

What I’m Reading Right Now: