Karen Cushman
Newbery award-winning children’s book author
As part of my list of favorite fantasy novels, I offer Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. A gifted musician, Seraphina is also part dragon. Intriguing story with great characters and the wonderful image of her silver scales. Beautifully written.
Here’s Rachel Hartman’s website, where you can learn more about this book and her newest, Shadow Scale.
Last year, you may remember, I waxed eloquent over a book by Canadian writer Erin Bow called Plain Kate. It remains one of my three favorite fantasy novels (the other two are Seraphina by Rachel Hartman and Something Red by Douglas Nicholas). Erin kindly sent me a copy of her new book, Sorrow’s Knot, a lovely, sad, beautifully written fantasy based in an imaginary world that is reminiscent of early North American native cultures but still entirely new. That world is unravelling, and Otter, Kestrel, and Cricket, likable and believable young people, face fear, danger, death, and unanswerable questions together as they struggle to hold it together. Erin’s incredible imagination and exquisite writing skills have resulted in a wonder of a book that captured me with the first sentence: The girl who remade the world was born in winter. I recommend it—great reading for a winter night.
Being of a somewhat oppositional temperament, I tend to dislike what everyone else likes. Here is a rare exception: I am neck deep in Seraphina and loving it. Rachel Hartman offers us a meticulously-built, rich and complex world peopled (if I may use that word to include dragons) with distinctive, engaging characters. I am absorbed, intrigued, and fascinated. Now farewell, I have a book to finish.