Sleeping Spells and Dragon Scales

Gr 5 Up–Four years ago, Alaina Lucero, described with brown skin and purple hair, and Liam Montoya (appearance never described), took the Fairy Door Trail hike in Camas, WA, disturbing a fairy ring and breaking a mirror. Now, Alaina courageously manages Type 1 diabetes, while Liam exhibits unusual sleep patterns. Alaina convinces Liam that their hike caused their strange symptoms, and that they should work through a list of fairy cursebreakers. Liam faces derision from his soccer team as his performance suffers. Swore’s first-person narrative with chapters from Liam and Alaina is a clear, empathetic portrayal of living with childhood chronic disease as well as the timeless power of fairy tales to describe and allude to the human condition. While it succeeds in that, the balance of action and narrative seems weighted, relying more on dialogue-driven info-dumps than on plot. The middle third of the book focuses heavily on Liam and Alaina’s symptoms with almost no momentum. The title and cover indicate fantasy, but this is really a contemporary story with fairy-tale metaphors, which may not hit home with the average middle graders. That mismatch may mean its true audience (readers of Wonder) won’t find this story, while fantasy readers will be chagrined at its important but quotidian message.