Megan's Brood

Megan's Brood, Book One
by Roy Burdine
illustrated by Shawn Mcmanus


One summer, spunky 6th grader Meg moves into a new place with her parents, leaving her friends and familiar environment behind. In the attic bedroom of the new house, she discovers something magical - a cocoon pulsing with light and tiny heartbeats of unknown creatures.

Over summer, the creatures hatch, ten in all, and seem attached to Meg. She enjoys caring for them while she tries to make new friends in the new place - a skateboarding, garage-band musician of a kid called Cutter, and a soft-spoken well-mannered bookworm like herself called Casper.

Being Book One of a proposed series, we get the background and the set up established over the first two-thirds of the book. Around the last chapter or so, things gather momentum when one of Meg's brood, named Thorn for his spiky scales, reveals his true predatory and controlling nature.

When Thorn binds her dad and friend at their camping night right before start of school term, so as to barter for his siblings, things get fiery hot, literally. But, Meg manages to kick Thorn into the flames, save her dad and friend and the rest of her brood. For now.

The handful of black and white illustrations by Shawn McManus (www.shawnmcmanus.net) sprinkled throughout the book are gorgeous and complement the text well.

It would be interesting to find out how Meg handles her brood as they grow and change and whether Thorn will act on getting his revenge.

Epilogue sets us up for more adventure when we learn that Thorn is not destroyed by the flames after all and inside him beats an angry heart.

Roy Burdine has worked as animation director (Dreamwork's Puss in Boots, Ultimate Spider-Man) and can be found at www.RoyBurdine.com

[Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book but the opinions expressed here are entirely mine.]

[image source: photographed from review copy]