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THE DRAGON THIEF by Zetta Elliott Tour and Giveaway

January 26, 2021 By Heather Leave a Comment

 

Little Red Reads is happy to be hosting a spot on the THE DRAGON THIEF by Zetta Elliott Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Enter the giveaway below!

 

About The Book:

Title: THE DRAGON THIEF (Dragons in a Bag #2)

Author: Zetta Elliott, Geneva B (Illustrator)

Pub. Date: January 12, 2021

Publisher: Yearling Books

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, audiobook

Pages: 176

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

STEALING A BABY DRAGON WAS EASY! HIDING IT IS A LITTLE MORE COMPLICATED, IN THIS SEQUEL TO REVIEWER FAVORITE ‘DRAGONS IN A BAG’.

Jaxon had just one job – to return three baby dragons to the realm of magic. But when he got there, only two dragons were left in the bag. His best friend’s sister, Kavita, is a dragon thief!

Kavita only wanted what was best for the baby dragon. But now every time she feeds it, the dragon grows and grows! How can she possible keep it a secret? Even worse, stealing it has upset the balance between the worlds. The gates to the other realm have shut tight! Jaxon needs all the help he can get to find Kavita, outsmart a trickster named Blue, and return the baby dragon to its true home.

 

Grab the other book in the series!

Dragons in a Bag

 

Review: What a fun premise! Dragons in Brooklyn, a Ma who’s a witch and a transport machine in the middle of a downtown park. Zetta Elliott leads middle grade readers on a quest to find and capture baby dragons all while avoiding time traps and tricksters. Jaxon has so may discoveries about himself, his heritage and his potential. Time travel can be dangerous! Fast paced and easy to read fantasy with colorful characters. We loved it!

 

About Zetta:

I’m a Black feminist writer of poetry, plays, essays, novels, and stories for children. I was born and raised in Canada, but have lived in the US for over 20 years. I earned my PhD in American Studies from NYU in 2003; I have taught at Ohio University, Louisiana State University, Mount Holyoke College, Hunter College, Bard High School Early College, and Borough of Manhattan Community College. My poetry has been published in New Daughters of Africa, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, the Cave Canem anthology The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Check the Rhyme: an Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees, and Coloring Book: an Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers. My novella, Plastique, was excerpted in T Dot Griots: an Anthology of Toronto’s Black Storytellers, and my plays have been staged in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago. My essays have appeared in School Library Journal, Horn Book, and Publishers Weekly. My picture book, Bird, won the Honor Award in Lee & Low Books’ New Voices Contest and the Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers. My young adult novel, A Wish After Midnight, has been called “a revelation…vivid, violent and impressive history.” Ship of Souls was published in February 2012; it was named a Booklist Top Ten Sci-fi/Fantasy Title for Youth and was a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Book Award. My YA novel, The Door at the Crossroads, was a finalist in the Speculative Fiction category of the 2017 Cybils Awards, and my picture book, Melena’s Jubilee, won a 2017 Skipping Stones Honor Award. I received the Children’s Literature Association’s Article Award for my 2014 essay, “The Trouble with Magic: Conjuring the Past in New York City Parks.” I am an advocate for greater diversity and equity in publishing, and I have self-published numerous illustrated books for younger readers under my own imprint, Rosetta Press; 3 were named Best of the Year by the Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature, and Benny Doesn’t Like to Be Hugged was a first-grade fiction selection for the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Dragons in a Bag, a middle grade fantasy novel, was published by Random House in 2018; the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) named it a Notable Children’s Book. Its sequel, The Dragon Thief, was named a Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 by CBC Books. Say Her Name, a young adult poetry collection, was published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in January 2020; A Place Inside of Me: a Poem to Heal the Heart from FSG was named a 2021 Notable Poetry Book by the National Council of Teachers of English. I currently live in Evanston, IL.

Click here if you’re not sure how to pronounce my name.

I’m represented by Johanna Castillo of Writers House.

Photo credit: me!

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads

 

Find out about the illustrator Geneva B HERE!


Giveaway Details:

3 lucky winners will win a finished copy of THE DRAGON THIEF, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

1/18/2021

Two Chicks on Books

Excerpt

1/19/2021

Thepagesinbetween

Excerpt

1/20/2021

BookHounds YA

Review

1/21/2021

She Just Loves Books

Review

1/22/2021

Nay’s Pink Bookshelf

Review


Week Two:

1/25/2021

Nerdophiles

Review

1/26/2021

Little Red Reads

Review

1/27/2021

Midnightbooklover

Review

1/28/2021

The Bookwyrm’s Den

Review

1/29/2021

Momfluenster

Instagram Post


Rise of the Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel

May 18, 2017 By Heather Leave a Comment

Rise of the Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novelby Melissa De La Cruz
Published by Disney-Hyperion on May 23, 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
Source: Disney-Hyperion
Buy the Book • Goodreads

Ride with the tide!

Deep beneath the waves, King Triton's powerful trident has passed through the magical barrier that surrounds the Isle of the Lost-keeping villains in and magic out. And when Mal's longtime rival Uma, daughter of Ursula, gets wind of this, she can't believe her luck. The tide has dragged in something good for a change, and Uma is determined to get her wicked hands on it. But first, she needs a pirate crew.

A storm is brewing back in Auradon, and when Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay hear that the trident has been washed away, they realize they'll have to find it before anyone from the Isle does. Luckily, they seem to have a talent for locating missing magical objects.

As Uma readies for the high seas alongside Harry, son of Captain Hook, Gil, son of Gaston, and the toughest rogues on the Isle of the Lost, the reformed villains of Auradon devise their own master plan. And with King Ben away on royal business, they won't have to play by all the rules. Using bad for good can't be totally evil, right?

The thrilling, perilous race to the trident pits old friends-and current enemies-against each other with the future of Auradon on the line. Both teams might like to make waves, but only one will come out on top of this one.

Praise for Return to the Isle of the Lost

“Packed with plenty of humor and adventure, this sequel spinoff is destined to please. With a second movie in the works and a bevy of loyal readers, it certainly won’t stay on shelves for long.” -Booklist

“Disney lovers and fairy-tale fans alike will need to get their hands on this book.” -School Library Journal

About the Author

Melissa de la Cruz (www.melissa-delacruz.com) is the author of the #1 New York Times best sellers The Isle of the Lost and Return to the Isle of the Lost, as well as many other best-selling novels, including all the books in the Blue Bloods series: Blue Bloods, Masquerade, Revelations, The Van Alen Legacy, Keys to the Repository, Misguided Angel, Bloody Valentine, Lost in Time, and Gates of Paradise. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.

The Academy of School for Sidekicks~ Blog Tour, Interview and Giveaway

August 4, 2015 By Heather Leave a Comment

school_for_sidekicksThe Academy of School for Sidekicks

“Evan Quick, Hero’s Log, May the 25th… and darn it – I just can’t do this. I’m never going to be a Mask. Get over it Evan.”

Evan Quick has spent his whole life dreaming of becoming a hero. Every morning he wakes up and runs through a checklist of test to see if he’s developed powers over night, and every day it is the same thing – nothing. No flying, no super strength, no heat rays or cold beams. No invulnerability – that always hurt to check – no telepathy, no magic. Not even the ability to light a light bulb without flipping a switch. And now, he’s finally ready to give up.
But then, the class field trip to the Mask Museum is interrupted by a super villain attack, and Evan somehow manages to survive a death ray. Even better, Evan’s favorite Mask, Captain Commanding, shows up to save them all — and when things go very wrong, it’s Evan who finds the strength to come to Captain Commanding’s rescue.
Yet the hero’s reception Evan is expecting never happens. Before he even gets the chance to say hello, Evan is bundled away to The Academy, an institution derisively called The School for Sidekicks by its students. Forced to take classes like Banter Basics and Combat with Dinnerware, while being assigned as an ‘apprentice’ to Foxman – a Mask widely considered a has-been — Evan starts to worry that he’ll never be able to save the day…

Purchase

 

littleredgpost

Tell us about one of your characters and their superpowers.

I don’t want to give too much away about the story, so I’ll talk a little bit about one of my favorite minor characters, Blurshift. Blurshift is a shape-changer with no default identity who is constantly and slowly shifting through a series of human forms of varying gender and ethnicity. At the point in the story where School for Sidekicks is set, Blurshift is only changing into things roughly the size and shape of a human being, though their powers may grow over time.

One of things I loved about writing Blurshift is that it forced me to constantly think about identity and how who we are shifts and changes with time, especially as we’re growing up. Having a character who really made me think outside of the normal boxes of identity was both a delight and a challenge.

 Did any superheroes or comic book characters inspire your writing?

Yes and no. There aren’t a lot of direct lines from stuff I’ve read to School for Sidekicks, but I’ve always been a huge fan of comic books and of superheroes in general.

My biggest influences are probably from the ’80s Marvel Universe in the shape of Chris Claremont’s X-Men run, and some of the other titles that are contemporary with it. Especially Ghost Rider, Powerman/Ironfist, New Mutants, Daredevil, Thor, She Hulk, and the Avengers.

I’m also a huge fan of the older X-Men that were being reprinted around then, 70s Batman, Legion of Superheroes, the Invaders, and the Defenders. Some of the more obscure titles that I really enjoyed were the Micronauts, Rom Space Knight, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew (which was a fabulous hero parody) and Dazzler-I’ve still got my copy of the first dozen issues or so.

In terms of more modern comic work, I discovered Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey via finding them on a shelf in Neil Gaiman’s basement, and I absolutely adore her work there and on Batgirl. It was as much a revelation of what you can do with comics and heroes as Neil’s Sandman, or Mike Grell’s Longbow Hunters, or Watchmen.

I also have to mention the George R. R. Martin-edited Wildcards series of shared world anthologies, which showed me a whole different way to think about and tell superhero stories.

 Favorite writing treat?

Well, I try to avoid associating food or drink with writing. Writing is such a sedentary profession to start with that it can be hard to stay in shape. Which is also why I’m a bit of an exercise nut. So, I’m going to go with snowshoeing. A couple of years back I had to get a novel done in about 4 months, and one of the things I did to give myself incentive was to say that as soon as I got my word count done for the day, I could borrow my friend Neil’s dogs and go for a trek in the woods. Getting out into the deep snow and the cold and the bright hard winter sun to do something physical is a great treat for me.

 If you had a must read list for middle-grade children what would be on it?

In the interest of brevity, I’ll just list a baker’s dozen in no particular order.

The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe-C.S. Lewis. This was one of the first science fiction and fantasy novels I ever owned-my mom and grandmother got me the Chronicles of Narnia boxed set and I literally read this book to pieces.

Winnie the Pooh-A.A. Milne. WINNIE THE POOH, what more do you need to say?

The Wind in the Willows-Kenneth Grahame. Love, love, love this book, it’s pure joy to read.

The Graveyard Book-Neil Gaiman. This is one of the best modern books for the middle grade reader-I absolutely adore it.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone-J.K. Rowling. I first picked up a copy of this and the second book as a boxed set-the others weren’t out yet-in Scotland on my honeymoon, and simply fell in love with it.

Miss Bianca-Margery Sharp. Miss Bianca, more broadly known to most of the world as half of The Rescuers, was one of my first female heroes, brilliant, unbelievably brave, and simply perfect.

Charlotte’s Web-E. B. White. Another great classic that doesn’t need me to tell anyone why it’s magnificent.

Basil Of Baker Street-Eve Titus. The Basil of Baker street books were one of my great delights as a child-I read them before the Great Mouse Detective movie came out, and I maintain that the books are much better.

Beastmaster-Andre Norton. This book and its sequel Lord of Thunder are books that have some issues that grow more apparent with time, but they are a beloved part of my childhood, and something I do return to every few years. I just reread them last week, in fact.

The Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien. My earliest memories include Gandalf and Bilbo and thirteen dwarves of Thorin’s company. I can’t tell you how many times I begged my mom or grandmother to read them to me, and one of my great delights once I learned to read myself was that I could visit the Shire as often as I wanted to.

The Riddle Master of Hed-Patricia McKillip. I don’t know if these really count as middle grade-they were sold as juveniles when I was that age-but I absolutely loved Morgon of Hed and Raederle at 13, and like so many other book on this list I come back to them again and again.

A Nose for Trouble-Jim Kjelgaard. I stumbled on Kjelgaard’s books in my school library and devoured them. I must have read A Nose For Trouble a dozen times between the ages of 10 and 14, and I think it’s terribly sad that it’s very hard to find now.

Wee Free Men-Terry Pratchett. Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books are brilliant and fun and funny, and everyone should read them regardless of age.

What advice would you give to your middle-school readers?

I was raised and educated by hippies. So, both at home and at school I was constantly getting the message that I could do anything I set my mind to, and that I should be exploring everything that interested me to find something I could really love and set my life’s course by that star. I can’t think of better advice to a young reader than to explore the world, find something you can love doing, and go for it.

About the Authorkelly_author photo

KELLY McCULLOUGH is the author of the adult fantasy series Webmage and Assassin’s Blade. School for Sidekicks is his first novel for young readers. He lives in Wisconsin with his physics professor wife and a small herd of cats, all of whom he adores.more info at http://www.kellymccullough.com 

Do you have a question for our guest author? Kelly McCullough will be on Reddit doing an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) this Thursday August 6th at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. He’ll be answering questions about School for Sidekicks, all past works, being a writer, his cats, and much more. You can submit your questions by going to http://www.reddit.com/r/iama at the scheduled start time.

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We are the children's division of Fire and Ice. We review baby board books to middle-grade titles. We also review products and toys for the family. For inquiries on reviews, blog tours, and author interviews contact FireandIce.Heather@gmail.com
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