Book Review: Crimson Wings – The Boy Who Flew

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

Historical fantasy soars to thrilling, emotional heights in this extraordinary wartime tale of two brave boys protecting their dragon.

We meet lonely, neurodivergent orphan Henry at a really difficult time for both his country and his personal life. In 1940s London, politicians are trying to avoid escalating the war with Germany, while Henry is struggling with sensory overload at the boarding house where he was sent to live, now constantly surrounded by boys who were also suddenly and traumatically separated from their parents.

Author B.T. Skylark writes Henry’s experience of the world with brilliant skill. You feel like you’re in the rowdy dining hall, where “clattering cutlery, scraping chairs, [and] the endless echo of voices layered over voices. The smell of stewed turnips clung to the ceiling, and someone was always humming through their teeth or tapping their knuckles in uneven rhythms.” Even readers who aren’t neurodivergent will understand how dizzyingly overwhelmed Henry is when he explains: “To everyone else, it was just another noisy dinner. To Henry, it was a storm of collisions…Every fork clatter sliced into his skull. Every laugh scraped across his nerves. Someone had spilled gravy, and the smell turned his stomach, thick and oily and wrong.”

On one of his secret evening walks, where he escapes to the stillness of the river Thames for a moment to breathe, Henry finds an egg. Feeling drawn to it, Henry takes the egg home and keeps it warm, but hidden. When the egg hatches, revealing a red dragon that radiates calm and soothing energy, Henry finally feels like he belongs. “Not to the world of rules and punishment and silence. But to the sky. To this moment. To the dragon who had chosen him…”

Henry names the dragon Crimson and quietly keeps him. Unfortunately, his extended disappearances to fish for and feed Crimson don’t go unnoticed. What follows is told from various perspectives: First Henry; then Victor, the loud bully of the cold, chaotic boarding house, who follows Henry to uncover his secret. Agnes is the cruel, controlling boarding house matron, whose stern threats are no cover; she’s eager to report Henry to the government for wrongdoing if she can figure out what he’s up to. We also meet soldiers and politicians involved in the British war effort against Germany. This is how we learn that since choosing to care for Crimson, whispers of dragon sightings have spread across the country, and quiet, careful Henry unknowingly sets a high-stakes political storm in motion. But he wasn’t alone: “I thought if I was loud enough, someone would notice me. But I was always just noise. Henry was quiet, but he meant something. I think I wanted to be like that too.”

While I don’t generally enjoy a bully redemption story, I felt less conflicted with Victor since we don’t see Victor bullying Henry on-page. We meet him as a frightened boy who realizes that he’s been acting out for attention and sees that Henry is special. Victor acknowledges that he wants to be as strong and brave as the quiet, lonelier of their boarding house lost boys. When he finds out what Henry’s been doing with Crimson, he steps in to help, and they become a trio almost immediately.

“We’ll head north. When we’re ready. Somewhere no one looks. Somewhere not even stories go.” In the quiet teamwork of caring for Crimson, the boys form a bond in which they can finally be honest about their tangled emotions. Crimson Wings is the story of these boys committing to their true selves at a time when it can be dangerous to do so—abandoning self-preservation and deciding to protect each other and the dragon.

At first, they manage to hide Crimson in back rooms and abandoned places. As Crimson grows, so does Henry’s certainty that he doesn’t want to stay at the boarding house where he’s been made to feel so different that he worries he’s broken. He wants to go North, to fly high and find a forest dense and quiet enough to keep Crimson safe and himself calm. Victor’s not so sure about this plan, but he wants to be with them. A miscommunication between the boys means that Henry leaves Victor behind—but that doesn’t stop Victor from going on his own mission to reunite with his magical found-family. A tremendous, suspenseful adventure ensues!

The rich historical setting turns Crimson Wings‘s thrilling, urgent, high-risk tale of dragon discovery into an issue of national security. Village playground whispers of dragon sightings turn into a military investigation with international implications. Henry and Victor and Crimson together become an altogether new mythical creature, one that could offer tangible, practical help—if the government reacts appropriately.

This novel reminds us that the government, the army, and the failing boarding house are all made up of individual people who can choose to be honorable and generous toward these kids and make a real, lasting difference. The author reminds us that we can do the same. This is a hopeful book, about choosing to be kind even when it means disobeying orders and defying your role. It gives young people permission to be the best version of themselves, showing the reader that this decision—to lean into the goodness that lies in their hearts, to not shy ahead from what makes them unique—could save the world.

I would recommend this fantasy for an older teenage reader. It dives into dark, heavy themes on both political and emotional levels. The author explores fear, grief, guilt, and identity through Henry and Victor, who are brave and good, despite being told otherwise everyday for years. Emotional and political heaviness collide later in the book, where the boys are thrown into the deep-end of an ongoing, bomb-exploding, village-ravaging war—the responsibility of protecting a dragon (and potentially, the nation) hitting them while emotional turmoil swirls through their thoughts.

At first, Henry reads like his young twelve-year-old self, but later on, when he’s thrust into the dangerous, responsible situations, he suddenly reads like a Young Adult protagonist, maturing overnight under life-or-death circumstances that some younger readers might need historical context and emotional support to navigate.

This book would be great for parents to buddy-read with their neurodivergent kids, inspiring conversations about creating safe places of relief from overwhelming noise in their daily life and about the harrowing day-to-day human impact of world wars. I keep thinking back to the quiet, powerful moment when Victor whispers to Henry, out of the blue: “Do you think they will drop bombs on us?” Henry and Victor’s feelings, fears and coping mechanisms could be a powerful starting point for discussions about both emotional regulation and political views.

Multilayered and magnificent, with an unbelievable amount of heart, Crimson Wings includes some gasp-out-loud (yes, literally!) reveals. The twists and turns are inventive, genuinely surprising, and a joy to read because they’re set in the world B.T. Skylark built. The descriptions are so gorgeous that I’m growing even more desperate for the graphic novel adaptation.

Crimson Wings is a perfect match for teenage fans of How to Train Your Dragon, but it’s so much more: This book will inspire and engage young readers with an interest in—and crucially, an understanding of—war history and what it looks like for regular people. Curious kids will have a thousand questions and learn exciting new facts from B.T. Skylark’s rich historical setting alone. An adventure easily read in an afternoon, this is a tale you’ll hold close, an underdog story about unexpected heroes. This is the kind of book that becomes an heirloom, a family tradition—a precious, powerful journey worth sharing with those you love.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Crimson Wings: The Boy Who Flew by B.T. Skylark! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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