Dealing with Dragons

Reading it for the first time at the age of 69, I'm not the intended audience for this children's book.

Bearing that in mind, it's a congenial tale that's good enough to be readable by adults. It has a definite plot and a set of characters, and the heroine has personality. She deals with her problems with intelligence and determination.

I think it deserves three stars from me because I enjoyed it well enough and wasn't bored. Maybe I'll read it again someday. But I don't think it reaches the level of the best in children's fiction, and I don't feel an immediate urge to buy the sequels.

Fiction (yes, even fantasy fiction involving magic) should feel like something that's really happening to real people, but here I never lost the feeling that I was listening to a tale being told about made-up people. It's quite a good tale, but it doesn't feel real to me.