Spark
by Sarah Beth Durst
Clarion Books, 2019. 311 pages.
Starred Review
Here’s a fun fantasy about a quiet girl who tends to get overlooked. She’s one of the lucky few children who gets an egg of a storm beast to bond with and she expects to hatch a rain beast or sun beast like her father or older brother.
Everyone is surprised when her egg hatches the flashiest beast of all – a lightning beast!
Her family is convinced some sort of mistake happened. Mina knows that bonding with Pixit is not a mistake, but she still doesn’t feel adequate as the guardian of a lightning beast.
This book, like so many others, is about a 12-year-old going to school to learn magic, but this setting with dragon-like storm beasts is innovative and interesting. And there’s more. The storm beasts control the weather in their country of Alorria. But when Mina has an accident and lands outside the border, she learns that their control of the weather may have repercussions. But what can a 12-year-old girl do about that? Especially one who isn’t even sure she’s cut out to be the guardian of a lightning beast.
This is not a story about a quiet girl learning to be loud. It is the story of a quiet girl learning that being herself has power.
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