LEGENDS OF THE SKY

An orphan foundling finds four dragon eggs on an island nation that’s divided by nationalism and bigotry.

Twelve-year-old Milla works in the household of a wealthy merchant and his children, the twins Isak and Tarya. Though the twins are privileged, white Norlanders and Milla is their brown-skinned servant of uncertain parentage, the three children are dear friends. But in one chaotic day, Milla witnesses a murder, Isak learns he’s being sent away to learn a trade, Tarya’s told she’ll be marrying the duke’s only son—and then there are the eggs. The murdered man hid a sack containing four dragon eggs before he was killed, and only Milla saw him do it. The children are soon pulled into political intrigue against their will, as their island of Arcosi (realized with Italian inflections and colonized by the vaguely Nordic Norlanders) is torn apart by the nationalist bigotry of the duke’s police state. Is the return of dragons a sign that things are improving for Arcosi? Or is it just another reason for the increasingly paranoid duke to harm the most vulnerable? Despite shakiness in the story’s logic, there’s a reason that tales of penniless nobodies forming life bonds with dragons have enduring popularity, and this book falls squarely into that winning formula.

“Cinderella” plus dragons is an always-appealing trope; the anti-racist polemic adds some flavor