The Voice of the Wooden Dragon, Fiction by Christie Waldman

NFB Publishing, September 2024

After a brief hiccup, in which an irate dragon must be placated, this MG/YA fantasy begins—as now told by Christie and her new co-author, Marcus A. Dragon.

In the land of Deweydaire, which is ruled by (anthropomorphic) dragons, things are not fair. Humans work while dragons play. Princess Meredith, a dragon, leads others in fighting against the injustice, supporting the human cause. How could she have foreseen that she, like her human friend, young Peter Porter, would fall afoul of her bully cousin, Prince Rupert? Or that he would go to such lengths to silence her voice? Will intrepid Peter and the underrated court-jester Felix be able to help Meredith break the power of an illegal spell? In this Year of the Wood Dragon, The Voice of the Wooden Dragon is an entertaining-yet-inspiring story of transformation and new beginnings.

This is Christie and Lane Waldman’s debut novel as an author-illustrator team. Christie’s stories for children may be read at Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things, Skipping Stones, and East of the Web. Lane is also a writer whose sci-fi/fantasy stories have appeared in Uncanny, Daily Science Fiction, and Capricious, among other places.