Staff Review: "The Dragon's Tooth" by N.D.Wilson

Stand up and take notice Harry Potter fans, Percy Jackson fans, and those who love a rollicking good adventure, because the Smiths have arrived in Ashtown! In "The Dragon's Tooth," the first installment in N.D. Wilson's action-packed and suspenseful new series, Ashtown Burials, we are introduced to the deceptively normal Smith children who have fallen on hard times. Their dad died a year previously, their mom had an accident and went into a coma, and the three Smiths: Daniel, Antigone, and Cyrus, had to sell their home on the California coast and move to a decrepit motel in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Life is sad and boring until one night when a man called Billy Bones shows up with a lightning bug unlike any other. That night, Daniel is kidnapped and Cyrus and Antigone find that they are heirs to the mysterious Order of Brendan, a secret society of adventurers and explorers who have been protecting humanity since the dawn of time. As their only hope of saving Daniel seems to lie with the Order, Cyrus and Antigone agree to become Acolytes and learn from the Order, in spite of the obvious antipathy of everyone they encounter in the secret city of Ashtown.

With a vast array of weaponry, man-eating whip spiders, vicious gigantic tortoises and a particularly chilling arch-villain who dabbles in genetic mutations, this book will have you reading all night to find out what happens. You'll also be groaning at the end with the tantalizing teasers that Wilson gives us as a lead in for the next installment. "The Dragon's Tooth" definitely receives my vote for most exciting book this year, and I eagerly anticipate volume two of Ashtown Burials. Appropriate for grades 5-9.

--Andrea W., Headquarters

Note: There is a notable amount of violence and destruction, in a fantasy kind of way.