Lair of the Bat Monster: 11/27/20

Lair of the Bat Monster by Ursula Vernon is the fourth of the Dragonbreath books. While at the local swimming pool, Danny rescues a bat trapped in the pool filter. Careful to avoid being bitten, Danny takes the bat home and asks his mother what to do. She sends him and Wendell down to Mexico to a relative who specializes in bats.

Where the first three books were entirely fantasy, this volume is grounded, somewhat, in fact. Namely, it's about wild animal rescue and rehabilitation. It has specific instructions on how to handle injured wild animals and how and why to avoid rabies.

There is, of course, an element of fantasy, namely in the form of a giant, mythological bat that happens to be real. Danny ends up befriending the bat.

Like the previous books, Lair of the Bat Monster sits on the road narrative spectrum. As it happens, this book returns to the same placement as the original Dragonbreath: marginalized wildlands blue highway (669933).

The fifth book is No Such Thing as Ghosts (2011)

Five stars

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