"Welsh wonder, crazy weather, and a chaos-creating giant — this third Last Firefox novel is a sparky nugget of magical Middle Grade fiction."
Comic, quirkily cute, and crammed with page-turning peril, Lee Newbery’s The Lost Sunlion — the third book in The Last Firefox series — evokes Welsh magic, landscapes (and weather) through a thrilling story that’s perfectly-pitched for 9+-year-olds who like their fantastical fiction to be infused with real-life relatability. As in the previous Firefox stories, a cracking theme of finding your inner fire with support from friends blazes through this action-packed book.
Though Charlie and his Pa and Dad are well used to wet Welsh weather, this time is different. It’s been raining non-stop for a month and “things are starting to get out of hand. The river has burst its banks, slowly swallowing the surrounding fields, and the castle on the hill has practically become an island”.
Pretty certain these conditions aren’t only related to climate change, Charlie and Cadno the firefox return to Fargone and find the magical realm awash with chaos, thanks to a thieving giant. And so, it falls to Charlie and co to try to save the realm.
Serving a moreish feast of magical adventure and courageous characters at one shadowdragon-y swoop, The Lost Sunlion is a cwtch of a book (that’s Welsh for a hug that feels like home). It also delivers brilliant dialogue that’s often funny, and always engagingly authentic, with Laura Catalan’s illustrations further amplifying the story’s characterful charm.
I’ll leave the last words to Charlie, who pithily sums up the magical spirit of the book thusly: “I can’t help but laugh at the wonder of Fargone and Wales, their histories so interlinked, our stories shared, rich with dragons and giants that turn into mountains. It’s true what they say – that there’s always a little bit of truth in legends”.
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