Kindred Dragons
by Sarah Mensinga
Intermediate, Middle School    Abrams Fanfare    208 pp.
10/25    9781419771163    $24.99

This graphic novel is set in a world that will feel familiar to Anne of Green Gables fans, with echoes of and references to Anne’s world, although knowledge of the ins and outs of Avonlea isn’t required. For one thing, this book has a whole new set of characters; for another, some of those characters are dragons. Imaginative and spirited Anne-like protagonist Alice lives with her rigid grandmother in a tight-knit Prince Edward Island community complete with a one-room schoolhouse. Alice yearns for the fairies to bring her a dragon egg, which would designate her as a “Kindred,” set to form a lifelong bond with the dragon that hatches (think humans and their dæmons in Pullman’s His Dark Materials books). Alice doesn’t receive an egg, but she forges a connection with a dragon anyway: Brim, who is struggling because he’s been separated from his elderly Kindred, Miss Gilroy, who has dementia. Alice and her grandmother find themselves breaking the rules and bringing Brim into Charlottetown on a mission to help both dragon and his Kindred. The combination of dragon fantasy and historical fiction is likely to bring readers with a variety of interests into this affecting story—as will the graphic-novel format with its pleasantly springlike palette, the casually diverse skin tones among its characters, and the varied layouts of its soft-edged panels. Don’t miss the appended bonus comic, “A Day in the Life of a Baby Dragon.”

From the January/February 2026 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.