Rating: 3 stars

Iron Jaw finds herself tossed out into the alleys after living a well-to-do life of intensive study and training. Iron Jaw finds herself befriended by an older con artist, who creates new cons to cheat the public and earn them the money they need to live. When chance finds them involved in a crazy monk's street preaching from town to town, Iron Jaw becomes the one inventing the con that will keep them fed. But when you lie long enough, you start to believe it yourself, and after a while Iron Jaw may be conning even herself as their traveling ministry grows.

Hummingbird finds himself joining the military and, early on in his career, ambushed by pirates. His sword skills win him the notice of the pirate captain, who spares Hummingbird his life, only to enslave him in the pirate base. Escape attempts are almost impossible, but when the actions of the military on one of the pirates' raids make Hummingbird question his dedication to the Emperor, the life of a pirate may be preferred over a life as a slave or solider.

I got ripped off as a kid. These days, it's a whole different story. Iron Jaw and Hummingbird not only sets the story on a future Mars (over half a century distant) but re-imagines the century of Earth history prior to space travel to have China as the global superpower. Quite heady for the young, but presented in a way that makes it easy to follow and just as easy to believe.

As indicated above, the main story follows two different storylines; one for Iron Jaw and one for Hummingbird, with both their paths eventually crossing and uniting. Not a tough thing to follow but figuring it takes more than half the book for this to happen, the character building and slow unifying of protagonists may lose some of the more impatient readers. As well, the stylistic approach of the novel - Chinese names, politics, culture, customs and phrases - may also lose the less dedicated. This isn't the Crouching Tiger-esque, guys with tiny hands and feet in pajamas kicking the crap out of each other in restaurants the cover may allude to; it's more akin to a dramatic novel with a backdrop of political unrest and some action scenes. If you want teenagers beating the piss out of each other, read Kung Fu High School.

Iron Jaw is a decent book, not great but not bad. Worth checking out for the youth with a more global and/or political mindset.
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Publisher: Viking Children's Books
Pub. Date: October 02, 2008
ISBN-13: 9780670062362