First Hero

Gr 5–7—The Beasts have gathered. They must find their chosen riders since a dark force has entered the land of Avantia. Eight years later the story picks up again with Tanner, rider of the firebird Firepos, as an even more evil army ransacks his home. Their leader is looking for the Mask of Death, an evil and powerful tool that Tanner's grandmother cut into pieces and hid throughout the land. Tanner must find the mapmaker in another town before the destructive army does, but is too late and instead he finds another rider, Gwen, and her flying wolf. Together they rescue her brother, who has been captured by the army, and destroy the evil general. They win the battle and retrieve a map that shows the location of the Mask, but a stronger evil still lurks and will rise again. This slim first installment in the series uses the usual tropes of its genre and a typical good versus evil plot, with the suspense being who can get the sacred object first. The story itself focuses on the violence, with vivid details of killing. In one scene, Tanner's grandmother is tortured and killed, run through with a sword "dripping with gore." With nothing new to offer, this fantasy does not leave readers hungry for more.—Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA