Prairie Fire

by E. K. Johnston

Overview

Listen! For the song of Owen Thorskard has a second verse.

Every dragon slayer owes the Oil Watch a period of service, and young Owen was no exception. What made him different was that he did not enlist alone. His two closest friends stood with him shoulder to shoulder. Steeled by success and hope, the three were confident in their plan. And though Siobhan McQuaid was the first bard in a generation, she managed to forge a role for herself and herald Owen as a new kind of dragon slayer for a new kind of future.

But the arc of history is long and hardened by dragon fire. Try as they might, Owen and his friends could not twist it to their will. Not all the way. Not all together.

Listen! I am Siobhan McQuaid. I know the cost of even a small bend in the course of history. Listen!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467776813
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Lexile:	930L (what's this?)
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

The less cool things about Kate are that she's from a small town in southwestern Ontario, she spends a lot of time crying over books in random coffee shops, and she can't play as many musical instruments as she wishes she could. The Story of Owen is Kate's first novel. Visit her online at ekjohnston.ca.

Editorial Reviews

"Grand, heartbreaking, ennobling and unforgettable." —starred, Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

03/01/2015
Gr 8 Up—There is a little something for everyone in this sequel to the acclaimed The Story of Owen (Carolrhoda Lab, 2014). Fantasy fans will love returning to an alternate world in which the armed forces slay dragons. History fans will get a kick out of the way Johnston intermixes actual U.S. and Canadian history with a dragon-friendly story line. Eco-aware fans are unlikely to miss the underlying sentiment that oil brings nothing but trouble in both titles. This time around Owen, Sadie, and Siobhan have enlisted in the Oil Watch (think the U.S. Army, but with more fire drills). While Sadie and Owen excel with ease, troubadour Siobhan struggles to prove her worth. When the three are stationed in separate locations, Siobhan must learn to find her role without the reassurance of her two best friends. VERDICT A fantasy YA novel that steers clear of love triangles, teen angst, and a tidy ending is hard to come by; Prairie Fire and its prequel are must-haves.—Jennifer Furuyama, Pendleton Public Library, OR

School Library Journal

★ 2014-12-22
This follow-up to the acclaimed The Story of Owen (2014) is part adventure, part alternative history, part friendship story, part ecological fable and all heroic saga.Once dragon slayer Owen Thorskard graduates high school, he signs up for his mandatory service in the Oil Watch, and of course Siobhan McQuaid, his bard and best friend, enlists as well. Their previous exploits (chronicled in Siobhan's songs, now a YouTube sensation) have made the pair unpopular with those in power, so they receive the dreariest, most remote deployment: Fort Calgary. Grueling practice gradually coheres their raw support team into a tough fighting unit—and trusted friends. But are they prepared for the test of the biggest, deadliest dragon of all? This sequel is not as perfectly crafted as Johnston's debut: The plethora of new characters is hard to keep straight, the minutiae of military training drag on the pace, and promising subplots peter out without resolution. Still, the narrative is held together by Siobhan's unique voice, which casts every character as an instrument, every event as a melody; all she witnesses is knit together in a symphony expressing universal themes of friendship, duty, loyalty and sacrifice. For all Siobhan's insistence that she merely channels Owen's story, it becomes evident that tales are as much about their tellers and that heroism comes in all forms. Grand, heartbreaking, ennobling and unforgettable. (Fantasy. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews