The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: Talking to Dragons

Series: Enchanted Forest Chronicles #4

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Retelling

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review:

Always be polite to dragons!

That’s what Daystar’s mother taught him…and it’s a very wise lesson–one that might just help him after his mom hands him a magic sword and kicks him out of the house. Especially because his house sits on the edge of the Enchanted Forest and his mother is Queen Cimorene.

But the tricky part is figuring out what he’s supposed to do with the magic sword. Where is he supposed to go? And why does everyone he meets seem to know who he is?

It’s going to take a particularly hotheaded fire-witch, a very verbose lizard, and a badly behaved baby dragon to help him figure it all out.

And those good manners certainly won’t hurt!

This was a really nice ending to the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. This book takes place seventeen years after the events of Calling on Dragons and is from the perspective of Daystar, Cimorene’s son.

Daystar is an interesting narrator. First, this book takes place in the first person point of view, which none of the other books do. This did add a little more of a familiarity between the narrator and the reader. Second, he isn’t very familiar with the world he lives in. He has never gone very far into the Enchanted Forest and has never meet a dragon. This means we get to come back to this world with a completely different lens.

Daystar got to experience this new world, and we got to return to this world that has changed in the time jump.

Daystar is able to meet Morwen and Telemain, which was nice, but I have one problem with that, which I will share in a minute.

Daystar went on his adventure with Shiara and Dragon, two new characters. Shiara is a fire witch, so it was nice to get to see this magic more up-close. Shiara wasn’t the nicest character, though, and it kind of grated on my nerves. Dragon was fun, and we got to know more about dragons.

This book showed us what happened in the seventeen years since the ending of the last book and how things have changed. This book also concludes a lot of the issues set up in the previous books, so if you want a happy ending, this is the book for you.

On to my greatest issue. I love friend/family groups, and love reading them. I especially love reading the emotional scenes. One of my issues was the fact it seemed all of the characters who were friends/found family for the first three books didn’t appear to talk to each other at all for the seventeen years between the end of last book and the beginning of this book. I find this super sad. But they do seem to automatically just jump into being together and happy at the end of the book, which seems unlikely to me. Also, there is never a conversation between Mendenbar and anyone! He doesn’t even seem messed up from what happened to him. If what happened to him happened to me, I would be a wreck, but no, he just jumps right into life no explanations and no asking how he is doing. He also doesn’t seem overly concerned with missing his son’s entire life! Also, who is King of the Enchanted Forest? I think that needed to be addressed and wasn’t.

These issues aren’t the biggest and I am a little older than the age range for these books, but it was something I noticed.

Talking to Dragons was an emotional and adventurous ending to a well-loved series. With a time jump, new perspectives, intriguing characters, and a first-person point of view this book isn’t one I will forget soon.