Bera the One-Headed Troll

Written by: Eric Orchard

First line: Somewhere north and east there is a secret cove.

Why you should read this book: Bera is a simple one-headed troll, happily tending her crop of pumpkins for the royal family, until the day she spots some wicked mermaids playing roughly with a human baby mislaid by a renegade witch. Accompanied by her owl friend, Winslowe, Bera sets off on what she is sure will be a mini-quest to seek out a true hero worthy to save the baby, but none of the heroes in her neck of the woods are sufficiently heroic to do the job. Now she's far from home, navigating a world of goblins, rats, hedgehog wizards, wolves, flying eyeballs, and, of course, much larger trolls with many more heads than she has.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have a very strict definition of "family" and it doesn't include trolls, owls, rats, or goblins.