Children of the Black Glass

January 1, 2023
Siblings Tell and Wren journey down the mountain alone to the sorcerers' home to save their father's life. When their father wounds his only good eye mining sorcerer's glass from the mountain, village rules say he must heal in 30 days or be left on a glacier to die following a farewell ceremony. The children will be separated to live with adults who will beat them and treat them like servants. But Tell is 14, almost old enough to travel to the town of Halfway like the other men. They go once a year to sell black glass and bring back provisions for the harsh winter. Tell is determined to sell the sorcerer's glass himself so he can make enough money to get medicine for his father and keep his family together. His 12-year-old sister, Wren, sneaks away to join him. But when they stumble on a dangerous plot to take over Halfway--one that also puts their entire village in great danger--Tell, Wren, and their new Halfway friends must unravel the scheme and try to save everyone. The central concept of this debut novel from screenwriter Peckham is intriguing but execution is lacking, and the to-be-continued ending is unsatisfying. More of a play-by-play than a fully realized novel, the book features characters who lack depth and circumstances that are often too convenient. This harsh world includes child and animal abuse. Characters are presumed White. A series opener that skims the surface. (Fantasy. 10-14)

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January 23, 2023
Greed, magic, and prejudice fuel political machinations in screenwriter Peckham’s thinly built fantasy debut. Furious 14-year-
old Tell and cheerful 12-year-old Wren belong to the People of the Black Glass, so named for the vein that burrows through the mountain on which their remote village is perched. Things grow dire when the siblings’ father is blinded in his remaining eye while carving out a slab of the valuable material, which is mined as the community’s sole income source. Their father is given 30 days to heal, after which he’ll be sent up the glacier to die and the children will live with other families. Given the thin sheet of “sorcerer’s glass” by his father, Tell undertakes the perilous trek to the city of Halfway, accompanied by Wren and faithful mule Rumble; there, they plan to sell the glass to the most powerful and wealthy sorcerer they can find. But the duo soon encounters a secret, bloody coup that threatens to rend Halfway and endanger their people, and must form a shaky alliance to help them navigate a hostile city. Surface-level characterization mires observations on class, intergenerational trauma, and wealth disparity in this brutal, plot-heavy adventure. Characters default to white. Ages 10–14. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

February 15, 2023
Grades 5-7 As dark and flinty as shards of the titular obsidian used here both for weapons and for magic, this debut fantasy takes two children raised in an isolated, impoverished mountain community of glass miners down the slopes to Halfway--a sprawling town of ruthless traders and dangerous, enigmatic sorcerers--to be attacked, robbed, and swept up in a violent civil conflict. Though Peckham gives 14-year-old Tell and his younger sister, Wren, new city friends and a cantankerous donkey as appealing allies, it's their shared toughness of mind and well-honed abilities to think and work together that get them through challenges ranging from finding a way to free the captured and enslaved men of their village to coping with the shattering discovery that their own absent and presumed dead mother had readily abandoned them to chip out a new life for herself. The harsh tone and brutal twists will leave readers in a sober frame, but the tale, which ends with a promise of further episodes, features embedded glints of loyalty, courage, and friendship to lighten the load.

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