After reading Dragon with a Chocolate Heart and The Girl with the Dragon Heart by Stephanie Burgis, I wonder that there aren’t more books that combine chocolate and dragons. That’s a winning and — to my mind — unique combination. Burgis does a great job creating spunky characters who face daunting challenges but prevail with bravery, honesty and a little help from their friends.

The first installment, Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, features Aventurine, an immature dragon, whose big brother studies philosophy and whose mother and grandfather keep telling her she is too young to venture from their cave. Aventurine sneaks out in defiance of the rules. She gets turned into a 12-year-old girl by a mage (she was thinking about eating him, in his defense). Since her family no longer recognizes her, Aventurine decides her future is in the nearest town, Drachenburg. It is entertaining to see her try to adapt to her puny human form. Once she discovers chocolate, she finds her purpose in life. With the help of a new friend, Silke, Aventurine finds work in a chocolate house and is happy with her new life.

Although the dragons and humans live in uneasy truce, it will come as no surprise to the reader that Aventurine’s dragon family is soon canvassing the countryside searching for Aventurine and terrifying the humans.  Aventurine quickly realizes she is the only one who can save the town — her town — and again with Silke’s help, approaches the king and crown princess, a fierce and calculating character in her own right.

The second installment, Girl with the Dragon Heart, features Silke. I fell in love with her character as soon as I read these early lines: “If you have the courage to tell your own story, you can remake the world.” Burgis writes wonderfully about unconventional girls and adventure. Silke, for example, wears boys’ clothes, cuts her hair short, explores the alleys and back lanes of her city so that she knows every passageway.  She is presented with a challenge that involves wearing dresses (much harder than pants and jackets) and spying on terrifying and dangerous visitors from dangerous Elfenwald.

While Silke thinks her main goal in life is to find a comfortable home and interesting job, she discovers, like Aventurine, that she has come to cherish her adopted city and will do almost anything to save it.

 Burgis does a lovely job conveying that most people in the stories are not white, but without belaboring the point. The plot of Dragon Heart is a tiny bit more suspenseful than Chocolate Heart and ties in with Silke’s backstory, but once again Silke and Aventurine, together with a few other friends, save the day. And chocolate plays a role throughout both stories.  

I was so drawn in by the chocolate story line that as soon as I finished the books I made myself some hot chocolate.

Happily, it appears there will be at least one more story in the series: The Princess Who Flew With Dragons is scheduled to come out later this year. I can’t wait!