Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences.

Today we are featuring DACTYL HILL SQUAD by Daniel José Older.

Dactyl Hill Squad is an action-packed middle-grade alt-history fantasy set smack dab in the middle of Civil War times in 1863 New York *WITH DINOSAURS*!

Magdalys, a twelve-year-old Afro-Cuban girl who lives at the Colored Orphan Asylum, is drawn to dinosaurs, but she’s not allowed to ride them since she’s brown-skinned. One evening when she and the other kids at the orphanage are out to see a performance at the “only all-black Shakespearean company in New York”, Draft Riots break out and a racially-motivated fire destroys their orphanage.

Magdalys and the other orphans flee to the Dactyl Hill neighborhood, a safe community for black and brown New Yorkers. Their newly-formed “Dactyl Hill Squad” joins up with the Vigilance Committee to take down Riker, the evil white Magistrate who is kidnapping dark-skinned children for slavery. Also, Magdalys receives a letter that her brother Montez was wounded in the war. He is unconscious, and no one knows if he will survive. When Magdalys realizes she has supernatural skills that will give her team the upper hand in derailing Riker’s plan to sell them all to slavery, she knows she must stay to help before she goes to her brother. It’s a race against the clock to help the Dactyl Hill Squad save the kidnapped children, defeat Riker, and get to her brother in time. To do so, she must summon immense courage, learn to ride dinosaurs, and fight in terrifying battles.

I’m a fan of Daniel Jose Older’s young-adult Shadowshaper series, and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Madcap Retreats’ Writing Cross-Culturally workshop. When I heard he had a middle-grade historical fantasy series in the works, I was very intrigued! DACTYL HILL SQUAD is fast-paced, fascinating, and its blend of alt-history and fantasy makes it one of the most interesting middle-grade books I’ve ever read. Its perfect for kids who like action, fantasy, and history, a combination that is nearly impossible to find.

Magdalys is a lovable and powerful female protagonist that steals your heart from page one. Older’s honest portrayal of the sensitive topics of gender and race add fresh and important perspective to the history of this time that is often missed in school. The dinosaurs make the whole story super fun, and I predict kids will be begging for the next book, which is due to release next spring!

The endnotes, which help separate fact from fiction, are an important part of the story. They provide historic details, dinosaur and weapon facts, and a key to explain some of the slang that Older had fun with in the book.

DACTYL HILL SQUAD received a starred review from School Library Journal and is available at a bookstore or library near you!

From his website: Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can connect with him on Twitter and Instagram.