By Brandon Mull
The dragons have decided their magical sanctuaries are really prisons, and now they want out, with two ordinary children named caretakers of the one holding them back.
For ages, the world's dragons have been kept in hidden sanctuaries. Now they've had enough of being caged, and they're ready to rise up against humans everywhere. Kendra and Seth Sorenson, a sister and brother who already survived the magical preserve of Fablehaven, are sent to become the new caretakers of Wyrmroost, a dragon sanctuary run by a proud and dangerous dragon king named Celebrant. The job is impossible: two children are supposed to keep a realm full of dragons from breaking loose and burning the world down. This is Brandon Mull's sequel series to Fablehaven, and it can be read on its own.
For a Wings of Fire reader who loved dragons as real characters, proud and scheming and not always on the good guys' side, this hands them a whole political world of them. The dragons here negotiate, threaten, and plot, and the tension of two children trying to hold authority over creatures who could eat them is the whole thrilling engine. It connects to Mull's giant Fablehaven universe, so there are many, many books waiting if it takes. It sits high on the shelf because the peril is real and the dragons are frightening.