The Bent Sword

Steffin of Peaville would rather slay dragons than make barrels. Convinced that heaven has a quest for him, he flees home under the guidance of a peculiar storyteller-sage and sets out to defeat the Lord of Boredom and his dreaded Box of Boredom. Along the way he collects a reluctant giant, a gallant fool, and a flower-loving knight, blundering through robberies, jousts, and jailbreaks. Part Don Quixote, part coming-of-age fable, this clean, laugh-out-loud fantasy asks whether dreams can truly reshape reality.

• Don Quixote meets The Princess Bride for the middle-grade crowd—a boy so desperate for adventure he invents his own villain, then finds out the villain might be real.
• Laugh-out-loud clean fantasy: highway robbery gone wrong, self-made 'Wanted' posters, and the worst knight in the land who refuses to trample flowers.
• A metafictional twist that rewards attentive readers—the hero discovers he is a character in the very book he's been carrying.
• Written by an author who dreamed it up in middle school running around the halls in a fake British accent—authentically kid-powered imagination.

“As nice as proper beginnings are, sometimes our stories begin in Chapter Thirteen, and the explanations never come soon enough.”

Perfect for an imaginative 11-15-year-old (or the young-at-heart adult) who loves goofy quest fantasy in the vein of Don Quixote or The Princess Bride and wants a clean, laugh-out-loud read.