Ivy and the Meanstalk

When the book opens, the kingdom of Ardendale is celebrating a wedding! Ivy's fairy godmother, after many hundreds of years of fairy-ing (and many jilted lovers), is finally getting married. Ivy, her bridesmaid, is stuck wearing a most ridiculous (but delightfully described) dress and Eldridge, her dragon friend, is contentedly eating vast amounts of roast meat.

You know it's just too good to last, and good thing too. "Happily ever after" is (I think Ivy would agree) a pretty darn dull state of affairs. In fact, Ivy's relief at the prospect of a new adventure (and one that will get her out of that silly dress) is vast.

So when a grumpy plant wizard stops by and a magic beanstalk, pardon, MEANstalk carries off the fairy godmother's beloved pet goat, it's Ivy to the rescue once again. She and Eldridge embark on an adventure which takes them from Ardendale to the palace of an insomniac giantess, a kingdom founded by a self-centered ninny, and an unusual henhouse.

Ivy is a brave, lively, likeable heroine. Her kindhearted and mild-mannered dragon friend is likewise a sympathetic character. Ivy's friend Owen, the stable boy, who tags along, turns out to be even more resourceful and useful than Ivy had suspected. That these three friends manage to complete their quest and save the kingdom is really a given. It is, after all, a fairy tale, even if a fractured one. HOW they manage to do it... well, that's where the surprises lie, and there are a couple of quite satisfying ones along the way.

In other places, however, the book feels a bit predictable. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a very enjoyable, engaging predictability, and sometimes, frankly, I don't want to be challenged -- I just want to enjoy a good yarn.

Another (again minor) quibble I have is that the characters felt to me like I ought to have met them before. I have not read the first book in this series, and I suspect that if I had, I would have returned to these characters like old friends, arms open. Meeting them for the first time in this book, however, I was just a bit at sea, as if I were entering a party already in full swing. I knew I was supposed to like them (and I did) but I didn't really have the chance to get to know them, not as well as I would have liked to.

Yet I was happy to be along for the ride. Who wouldn't want to ride a dragon, after all?