Dragon Ops

Gr 3 Up–Siblings Ian and Lily, along with their annoying cousin Derek, have scored a once-in-a-lifetime chance—they will get to explore the new Dragon Ops augmented-reality video game theme park before it opens to the public. But they haven’t even finished their first quest when they realize something has gone wrong. Getting hurt in the game hurts in reality, their goggles don’t seem to have an off switch, and suddenly the exit is missing. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the game’s legendary big bad boss, the dragon Atreus, has issued them a personal challenge. They have three days to find him and fight him, and in this virtual world controlled by the Atreus artificial intelligence, there’s no save points or do-overs. In fact, if Ian, Lily, and Derek can’t defeat Atreus, it’s game over—forever. This book could be described as Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One for middle grade readers, complete with old-school video game references. Even reluctant readers are likely to find something to keep them engaged. Despite the book’s length, the short chapters help the story fly by.