community-driven model.”

And, the model seems to be serving the city well. Each year, Friends of Trees coordinates Neighborhood Planting Days in many of Portland’s neighborhoods. On these days, trained volunteers help local residents plant between 150 and 250 street and yard trees. Friends of Trees then works with a cadre of volunteers, called summer inspectors, that survey the trees in the first summer to keep track of how well the new trees are doing; these trees have a 97 percent survival rate in their first year.

The biggest challenge that the program faces is getting residents to opt-in to trees. West explains that in an opt-in model for tree distribution, residents are informed that trees are available and then must reach out to Friends of Trees to request thesome nascent magical ability.  Among the common folk, there is little magic, but the nobles and members of the royal family (who she grows up around) have fairly strong magical abilities.  Aerin is reviled among many of the royal household, both because her mother was a pale-skinned, red-haired foreigner (who Aerin closely resembles) and because she apparently lacks magic.
Desperate for something to do with her life, Aerin researches an formula for a ointment that will make her immune to dragon fire, and once she masters it, she goes out hunting dragons.  Most dragons in Damar are small, dog-sized nuisances.  Once she has gotten experienced at killing them, she gets to face off against one of the great dragons, Maur the Black, who poses a