2 out of 4 stars
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Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg is a short story told in the style of an epic poem. Before I begin, I'd like to mention that the book is currently only 99 cents on Amazon for Kindle with no sign that it's a temporary sale. If you have a young child that you read stories to, you can probably skip this review and drop a buck on this one right now! My review is focused solely on my own reading experience as a lover of both poetry and fantasy.
To judge the book, I'll first have to discuss the "poem" half of "epic poem". The entire story is told in four-line stanzas that follow an ABAB rhyming pattern, as in "I read Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg/And now I'm doing a review./No, I wouldn't be pulling your leg/By saying I read it all the way through." There are a total of 48 stanzas throughout the five chapters of this book. Quite a few of these rhymes felt rather forced or had lines that wildly varied in syllable count. Shakespeare this is not, but read aloud properly to a young child Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg can be a fun, hilarious short story. While I was reading, I pictured having a crowd of little ones, performing my heart out for them!
As for the "epic" portion of "epic poem", this one falls rather flat. There's absolutely no character development, events come and go in the blink of an eye. Because of this, nothing feels truly adventurous and there's never a sense of tension or fear. And hey, where are the pictures? Sure this isn't officially a children's book, but they sure would come in handy during those epic readings to kids!
One last thing to note is that Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg appears to be the first in a line of Adam Sealon stories. I was unable to find any status or proof anywhere as I write this, but the poem ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, which is a shame... I became extremely fascinated by the idea of a high adventure epic poem featuring dragons the second I heard about this book and I'm a bit let down that I still don't know what happened at the end of Adam Sealon's tale! Brian Singh's bio speaks of a love of poetry, so I'd imagine that a sequel will be done in the same style, but honestly all I hope is that it comes soon - I really want to find out what happens!
Despite all the negativity I've thrown at this book over the last several paragraphs, it's a cute first release by Brian Singh and intro to Adam Sealon's tale. At only 99 cents, it's hard to pass up unless you don't have a child to read it to, I just wish it was released a few years ago and there was a packaged set to buy with the entire tale! All in all, Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg gets 2 out of 4 stars.
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Adam Sealon and the Dragon's Egg
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