The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K Paul

My kids love fantasy. I think it's because their Daddy loves fantasy and he reads to them. I'm actually glad of this on two counts: 1)he reads to them and 2)they learn to love something I never learned to love because my mother never read fantasy to me.

I confess I have trouble reading it. I can picture a brunette in a house, I have more trouble picturing an emerlindian with a hollow.

I'm a literary writer's nightmare, by the way. My crit partners love descriptive phrases. They'll go on and on about a stream converging upon a river for three pages and how the leaves look reflecting upon the water with the dun hooded sky over it all...(I've come to appreciate them, but me, I'm a "give me some dialog, gimme some action" girl).

But this is why I've come to love Donita K. Paul. She's action and dialog and her world is almost earth-y, almost familiar, and she has a glossary at the back for when I can't put it together. Meanwhile, my kids are in hog heaven.

Donita K. Paul’s 250,000-plus-selling DragonKeeper Chronicles series has attracted a wide spectrum of dedicated fans–and they’re sure to fall in love with the new characters and adventures in her latest superbly-crafted novel for all ages. It’s a mind-boggling fantasy that inhabits the same world as the DragonKeeper Chronicles, but in a different country and an earlier time, where the people know little of Wulder and nothing of Paladin.

In The Vanishing Sculptor, readers will meet Tipper, a young emerlindian who’s responsible for the upkeep of her family’s estate during her sculptor father’s absence. Tipper soon discovers that her actions have unbalanced the whole foundation of her world, and she must act quickly to undo the calamitous threat. But how can she save her father and her world on her own? The task is too huge for one person, so she gathers the help of some unlikely companions–including the nearly five-foot tall parrot Beccaroon–and eventually witnesses the loving care and miraculous resources of Wulder. Through Tipper’s breathtaking story, readers will discover the beauty of knowing and serving God.