Nancy Yi Fan is the New York Times bestselling author of Swordbird and Sword Quest. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show as one of the World's Smartest Kids and on The Martha Stewart Show. Nancy spent part of her childhood in China, where she was born in 1993. Birds have been a lifelong passion of hers and provided the inspiration for her novels. She began writing her first novel, Swordbird, when she was eleven years old. Nancy attends Harvard University.
Gr 3-6-On Sword Mountain, the social status of birds is based on where they live and the color of their feathers. Dandelion is a dark-feathered valley eaglet, indicating low birth. Soon after hatching, she's attacked by an archaeopteryx, a vicious soldier bird. She narrowly escapes being eaten, but her parents are killed. Fleydur, a once-exiled prince, finds the broken little bird and introduces her to palace life. Her high-born, golden-feathered classmates are cruel to her, except Cloud-wing, the most handsome and popular eaglet at the palace. But he soon goes off to a special school to prepare him for battle and she loses her only friend. Luckily, Fleydur, who seems to be back in favor with the court, adopts Dandelion, making her a princess. But Dandelion wants to fight their enemies alongside Cloud-wing. She eventually gets her chance when a thief steals a magic stone and tries to frame her. Readers who haven't read Swordbird (2007) or Sword Quest (2008, both HarperCollins) will struggle with this one. New plot lines appear abruptly and fizzle out, and motivations for the characters' actions aren't always clear. Cutesy devices, such as changing indefinite pronouns such as "everyone" to "everybird" quickly wear thin. Overall this is an overwritten, underdeveloped tale.-Mandy Laferriere, Staley Middle School, Frisco, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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