The Iron Trial

The main character in this middle grade fantasy adventure has a limp that's realistically present yet never overtakes the story — a delicate balance.

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The Iron Trial

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Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.

All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.

So he tries his best to do his worst – and fails at failing.

Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.

The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .

From the remarkable imaginations of bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a heart-stopping, mind-blowing, pulse-pounding plunge into the magical unknown.

Practical information

Authors: Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Publisher: Scholastic
Publication year: 2014
ISBN: 9780545522250
Age category: middle grade
Disability portrayed: limp
Genre: fantasy

Accessible formats

audiobook available

Authors

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty fantasy novels for kids and teens. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.

I think that we as writers have an obligation to tell the truth about the world — and diverse world is a true world. I also think that we have to be conscious of which stories are ours to tell, which stories we have points of identification with and which stories we need to do more work if we want tell responsibly. There is a very well respected workshop on “writing the other,” run by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward; resources exist to bridge those gaps in our knowledge and experience. We have to be thoughtful, but we have to try.

(Diversity in YA, April 2011)

Cassandra Clare is the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Chain of Gold as well as the internationally bestselling Dark Artifices trilogy, Mortal Instruments series, and Infernal Devices trilogy. She is the coauthor of the Eldest Curses series with Wesley Chu; The Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson; Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman; and Ghosts of the Shadow Market with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Kelly Link, and Robin Wasserman. Her books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages and made into a feature film and a TV show. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts. Visit her at CassandraClare.com. Learn more about the world of the Shadowhunters at Shadowhunters.com.

[W]hat gets me worried about it sometimes is when people refer to [diversity in fiction] as a trend, because to me, a trend is something that passes, you know, it’s like saying “there’s a trend for red sneakers” or something and I’m like hopefully this isn’t a trend, hopefully this is a direction and that direction will continue.

(Gist, April 2019)

Practical information

Accessible formats

Authors

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