Icefire is book two in the Last Dragon Chronicles by Chris D’lacey and continues the story of David and the Pennykettle dragons. David has a new and rather mysterious geography professor who seems to have an unusual interest in dragons but also an unusual interest in bears and the arctic. As he works on finding out what is going on he runs into Zanna, a fellow student in the class, who also seems to have an unusual interest in dragons but also in magic. Things start to get even more weird when Zanna has an unusual reaction to a clay dragon egg in the den and shortly after Liz’s aunt Gwyneth shows up out of the blue. In order to discover what is actually going on with Zanna, the egg and with Gwyneth, David finds himself delving deeper into the mystery of what actually happened with the last dragon and how it ties into the arctic and the bears. He also finds himself with an even deeper connection to the Pennykettle dragons than ever before, especially Gadzooks. Now he must sort through everything to figure out the past and the present and perhaps most important, what he wants in the future.
This is a really entertaining story that just keeps adding to the enchantment, in this case literally, of these charming dragons and the humans they live alongside. I feel I must also state that this is perhaps one of the most unusual depictions of dragons that I have ever come across and I greatly enjoy it. Seeing how the roles and personalities of the dragons grow and develop in this story was also interesting as we got to see a lot more about how all that works. There was a lot of character development in this story as it showed several different sides of David that we didn’t see in the first book which was nice. The story also added a lot more to the lore of the dragons and introduced new lore about polar bears which I am looking forward to seeing continued in the rest of the series. However, this book was also different in that its plot was way more complicated than the previous book. I say that because there was a lot going on in this remarkably short book and I sometimes felt like there were things that could have been more fleshed out because of this. The book was still really good though and I frequently found myself wanting to laugh at the antics of the different dragons, especially Gadzooks. Mind you, David and Lucy were not always much better at staying out of trouble. Definitely a good addition to a series that also had a pretty good start. I am happy giving it four out of five stars.
A good example of a kids fantasy series even if it feels slightly weird having a college aged protagonist. This would probably hold the most appeal for younger readers who enjoy fantasy but I could also see it appealing to older readers and probably any reader who enjoys books about dragons, like me. There wasn’t anything I would recommend you need to be careful about for this book so just about anybody should be okay reading it. If it sounds like something you might like I hope you will consider trying it but make sure to read the previous book before you do. As always feel free to share your thoughts in the comments if you try it.