VALOR WINGS

Subity’s alternate-history middle-grade fantasy novel offers a reimagining of World War II’s “Miracle of Dunkirk”—this time with dragons.

It’s 1940, and 13-year-old Iris’ small English village used to have a herd of dragons living in the forest nearby. However, before she was born, humans drove them away, except for one orphan. Iris befriends Galahad, the young dragon who was left behind, bringing him food and trying to teach him how to fly. (“You’re a glorious creature of unmatched beauty and odor,” she jokes.) However, the creature is captured by angry villagers after eating a sheep intended for military rations, and Iris strikes a desperate bargain to save his life: If the British army will spare him, he’ll become a flying messenger for the war effort. Meanwhile, a young Belgian Jewish teenager named Max is forced to flee his village with his grandmother when the Nazis invade. The pair are heading for the Dunkirk evacuation; when they get separated, Max continues to make his way to the coast and runs into a British army regiment in which Iris’ brother is serving. They take Max in and work to harry the oncoming German troops. Iris’ father and the rest of the village’s men take their boats to answer the call to help the evacuation effort, but the girl is determined to get other dragons to help. Later, when Iris finds out her brother hasn’t arrived yet, she heads inland to mount a rescue. Subity’s writing is well suited to a MG audience and maintains a strong sense of narrative tension throughout. Iris and Max are both well-developed characters, and if they’re a little overly earnest at times, it makes sense, given their ages. The alternating third-person perspectives of the two main players work well to move the narrative forward. It’s a bit unclear why, in a world where magic and dragons exist, absolutely nothing else is different from real-life history, but the introduction of such elements into WWII is a fun way to engage young readers with historical content.

An adventurous wartime tale that offers a very different version of familiar events.