title: Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales
author:  Terry Pratchett 
description: Gr 47This collection of short stories is eerily reminiscent of Roald Dahl's tales of humor and irony, while the illustrations are remarkably similar to Quentin Blake's. In Pratchett's tales, dragons invade a castle, having lost their caves to a stopped-up river; itty bitty people live, explore, and fight within the carpets; an odd caveman keeps inventing things that then cause disaster (a fire burning down the village); and a champion egg dancer catches a pair of thieves. The oddness of the stories makes them funny and unique. Many feature British terminology, which might confuse younger readers but adds to the flavor of the book. General themes include good overcoming evil, cheaters never prospering, and courage defeating danger. VERDICT Middle grade readers who enjoy Pratchett's other works or Dahl's tales are bound to enjoy this one.Heidi Grange, Summit Elementary School, Smithfield, UT
zlib_text: Dragon's Bane
  
  Barbara Hambly
  
  Copyright 1985 by Barbara Hambly
  
  CHAPTER I
  
  BANDITS OFTEN LAY in wait in the ruins of the old town at the fourways—Jenny
  Waynest thought there were three of them this morning.
  
  She was not sure any more whether it was magic which told her this, or simply
  the woodcraftiness and instinct for the presence of danger that anyone
  developed who had survived to adulthood in the Winterlands. But as she drew
  rein short of the first broken walls, where she knew she would still be
  concealed by the combination of autumn fog and early morning gloom beneath the
  thicker trees of the forest, she noted automatically that the horse droppings
  in the sunken clay of the roadbed were fresh, untouched by the frost that
  edged the leaves around them.
  
  She noted, too, the silence in the ruins ahead; no coney's foot rustled the
  yellow spill of broomsedge cloaking the hill slope where the old church had
  been, the church sacred to the Twelve Gods beloved of the old Kings. She
  thought