Firestone (Talgard Series #1) - Damien J. Nash I recieved a free copy of this book from the author to read and review...and it looks like my review will be the first. I'm honored.

I really enjoyed this book. I don't know that it's a good book--there were some editing errors and more than a few confusing switching tenses, but it's definitely worth reading. There are some books like that--okay or not-so-great books that you just love. I came just shy of loving this one, because the whining of the whiny characters was too prominent and because I couldn't believe Toegan was actually as old as he claimed to be. I would have found his character much more effective if he had been, say, ten or twelve.

As I noted in one of my updates, this book is much easier to read if you don't think of it as a book. I had to go into fireside-mental-mode to really get a feel for it, which basically means that I pretended I was a little kid sitting by the author's armchair, watching the fire while he told me the story aloud. It made the random bits of information, the author's teasing, and the changing tenses much easier to accept.

Since I notice that my review seems to be dwelling on less than complimentary facts, I'm going to explain my four stars now. I gave it such a high rating because Firestone was fun. As long as I held onto my fireside-mode and was willing to suspend a great deal of disbelief, I enjoyed every page of it. This is a light, charming, sweet little book that I highly recommend to young children who are starving for dragons. I tend to prefer books that have a dark or a grim mood to them, but it's nice, sometimes, to find a book that doesn't take itself too seriously. Firestone didn't. It was more intent on keeping me reading than on making me think.

I also liked how the book was exactly the right length; if it had been any shorter, I would have felt as if the plot was squashed. Any longer, and I would have tired of the material. And while the base story of the plot is a traditional mix of cliches, the children who should read it wouldn't know that, and it wouldn't affect their enjoyment of it.

I highly applaud Damien J. Nash for his wonderful little book and bid him to keep writing, because I think he'll be great someday. And I highly recommend that young dragon fans give Firestone a try.