Ancient, Strange and Lovely - Susan Fletcher

I must be one of the luckiest librarian in town, because I'm actually friends with the lovely Susan Fletcher, author of the Dragon Chronicles series. Her most recent in the series, Ancient, Strange and Lovely is just that - ancient, strange and lovely. But it's also the opposite of ancient, although I'm unsure what that word actually is, because it takes place in the future. So I guess maybe futuristic.

14 year old Bryn's mother is missing, and her father has gone off in search of her, leaving Bryn and her sister behind. Bryn and her sister have the ability to ken with birds, basically they can communicate with them through thoughts, so you know they're pretty special. I think that's a cool ability! Anyway, while Bryn's parents are both gone and cannot be contacted, Bryn finds a large egg in the basement, and when the egg hatches it turns out to be a dragon! This leads to a lot of wild results, including traveling by herself to Alaska to try and find her father ad mother herself. Whether Bryn will be able to keep the dragon safe is a big question.

The book has a serious ecological theme to it as well, as Bryn's mother has possibly found a way to fight at least some of the pollution that is destroying the planet in this near-future setting.

This book has quite a lot of high-level vocabulary and requires some inference about futuristic situations, descriptions of people, etc., so it is best for stronger readers. Dragon-story lovers will definitely want to read this book,either as part of the series or as a stand-alone.