School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-Lucy is a wizard who's looking to join the Fairy Tail Guild, which is famous for its members' out-of-control antics. When she meets Natsu, she never imagines that he's really Salamander of Fairy Tail. He spends much of his time as an ordinary guy who suffers from severe motion sickness in trains, boats, and even horse-drawn carriages. But when he taps into his magical abilities, he turns into an awesome fighter who uses fire to vanquish his enemies. By the end of the first volume, Lucy has joined the guild as well as Natsu and his flying cat as a team member. In the second volume, the team steals a magical book from the evil Duke Everlue and joins forces with Erza Scarlet to fight a guild that plans to use death-curse magic. Lucy and Natsu are the central figures in a large cast of characters, many of whom have unique abilities. Readers never see Erza's special skills in action, but it's clear that they involve lots of blood. The beings summoned by Lucy from the celestial spirit world are often temperamental and sometimes politically incorrect. The humor is often jaw-droppingly funny, meaning that the characters' jaws drop so low and so often that they look like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon. The illustrations are lively and keep the stories moving briskly. Each volume is filled with magic and humor and ends with a suspenseful cliff-hanger that will draw readers into the rest of the series.-Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.