The Beast King: Master of Medicines, Vol. 1

Gr 8 Up–An adventurer shifts from hunting monsters to healing them in this thoughtful take on the dungeon fantasy genre. The setting is a vaguely medieval world where one set of foes, the monsterkin, have seemingly been defeated, although monsters of a different race continue to exist in dungeons. Adventurers visit these dungeons to plunder them, killing monsters as they go, but an encounter with a beast proves to be too much for adventurer Tina Quais, and she ends up gravely wounded. To her surprise, she is rescued by a lion-headed monsterkin, Garon, who compels her to help him heal a grieving dragon. She soon learns that even the most fearsome-looking creatures have a gentle side, and that far from being extinct, the monsterkin are struggling to stay alive. Seeing the complexity of these hidden creatures and the pain that humans have inflicted on them, Tina joins Garon in his healing work. A few of the medical scenes are not for the squeamish, and some readers may find the story of the dragon whose chick has died upsetting. The art is unusual, with heavy black lines around the main ­characters and the word balloons, which makes them stand out from the backgrounds.