This historical fantasy imagines a postwar Japan where large ry?, or dragons, haven't been seen since WWII. Now, in the 1960s, only tiny ry? remain, living as companions to everyday people, but 10-year-old Kohei somehow has a cherished memory of seeing a huge Western dragon soaring and, nearby, his grandfather, or ojiisan, marveling at it. Since then, however, Ojiisan has been unhappy, and now he's very sick. Deciding that one more glimpse of a large ry? will make his grandfather smile again, Kohei sets out with his new neighbor, Jewish Japanese American Isolde, to find the dragon-egg facility and, using his dead father's controversial research, hatch a large dragon himself. Cohen's touching debut has the air of a modern fairy tale, forgoing tedious world building and delivering a tight, thoughtful story of a boy coming of age as he unlocks the mysteries of his family's past. Deceptively simple, it's an uncommonly sophisticated story in its exploration of intergenerational pain, family dynamics, and the surrounding emotions. Sweet and satisfying.

Cohen reimagines Japan two decades after World War II, with a fantasy twist. All humans have a ryu, a dragon companion, a whiskery creature born of rain and mist and small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. Kohei loves his smart, linguistically gifted Yuharu, but he also has a seemingly impossible memory of big dragons, the kind he thinks his grandfather, Ojiisan, once watched with joy. Now Ojiisan is bitter and given to drunken rages, and Kohei's widowed mother can only say, hollowly, "It's okay." Kohei teams up with his Japanese Jewish American friend Isolde (whose ryu speaks Yiddish) to find a big dragon that might heal Ojiisan's anger. The two travel deep into the sea to the palace of dragons, where Kohei gains new understanding of his family's -- and his nation's -- past. Cohen interweaves Japanese dragon imagery, history, and post-war culture in a story that muses on the legacies of emotion and family experiences in shaping identity after war. She blends her fantastical imagery with historical fact and realism, bringing readers commentary and questions on cultural identity, racism, friendship, and political activism. Deirdre F. Baker

Ten-year-old Kohei knows that his impossible memory is the key to fixing everything.Somehow, he has a memory of large Japanese ryū marching in a war parade and a single Western dragon circling the sky while his grandfather watches it, awestruck. But large ryū have not been seen in Japan for the last 20 years, since the end of World War II. Kohei believes that seeing a large dragon again will allow Ojiisan to experience a range of emotions instead of his constant anger and heal Kohei's family, broken even before his father's death. When their new American tenants arrive with their daughter, Isolde, who is Japanese American and Jewish, Kohei is excited to hear that they have a dragon, but their Yiddish-speaking dragon, Cheshire, is even smaller than Kohei's own tiny dragon, Yuharu; disappointed, Kohei lashes out. But when Ojiisan is hospitalized, Kohei convinces Isolde to go to New Ryūgū-jō, a replica of the underwater palace of the ancient dragon gods, in an attempt to hatch a large dragon egg. Their journey reveals a tragic truth that shakes Kohei to the core. Watanabe Cohen's use of the fantastical both parallels and is juxtaposed against real history and trauma. Fleshed-out and flawed characters pose difficult questions and make mistakes; conflicts aren't neatly resolved but rather are realistically depicted as ongoing. This quiet novel tackles complicated topics, including the devastation of war; readers with some knowledge of the period will likely get the most out of it.A beautiful-though complex-exploration of generational trauma. (author's note) (Fantasy. 10-14)