By Jessica Day George
A village girl is left on a mountainside as a sacrifice for the local dragon, and instead talks him into friendship and walks off with a pair of shoes that can change everything.
Creel's aunt has a plan to marry her off well: leave her on the mountain for the dragon to take, so a knight will come to the rescue and fall in love. The trouble is the dragon has no interest in eating her, and no knight bothers to show up. So Creel simply strikes up a conversation, and before long she's picking a keepsake from the dragon's enormous hoard, which turns out to be a collection of shoes. She chooses a plain pair of slippers and heads off to make her own way in the city, with no idea that the shoes she's wearing could start, or stop, a war.
For a child who loved the dragons of Wings of Fire but is ready to steer toward a hero who wins with wit and craft rather than claws, Creel is a perfect next step. She's practical, funny, and good at something ordinary, sewing, that turns out to matter enormously. The dragons here are characters with tastes and tempers, not just fire-breathing threats, which is exactly the flavor a Wings of Fire reader already loves. And it's the first of three.