By Piranha T.

High on Eld Mountain, the young wizard Sybel continues her father’s and grandfather’s collection of long-forgotten, magical creatures: Cyrin the boar, who knows the answers to all riddles but one; Gyld, a dragon who longs for its treasure; Moriah, the great black cat that rules the night; and many, many besides. Yet of all creatures, the one Sybel desires most manages to evade all her callings: the Lilaren, a beautiful white swan.

But Sybel’s life is about to change forever when a man comes, bearing a young baby who she must raise. Before long, she is pulled into the battle that goes on far beneath her home, into a world of power and deceit, love and terror, where all will soon seem to come at far too high a price.

This is by far one of my favorite books of all time, winner of the World Fantasy Award. Part of what makes it so magnificent is not only the characters, who are well-crafted and believable, but that you love them and care about what happens to them so much that you can understand everything too, and what they do in return.
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The story itself is one of the best plotlines I have ever read. It is so multi-layered and well written that it has a similar lyrical style to fantasy books like The Last Dragon and other masterpieces. I would highly recommend it to kids and adults twelve and up. It is one of those timeless books which adults can appreciate just as much as kids can, and I hope they will.

Guest contributor: Athena Goddess, Massachusetts

White Bostonian Turner Buckminster moves to Maine. He meets crusty, inbred Mainers and learns to love them. One especially, a black girl, who dies. Turner also learns about boats and keeping his mouth shut and not, when it's important.

I know this part of Maine and I never knew the local white people had run the black people off their island. The author could have dramatized this grandly but he makes it seem so ordinary and simple for people to be mean to each other. This is scary. Because it's historical, they simply call the mean folk "scoundrels'. We would use stronger language now.

Some of the Mainers are nice, too, including the whales.