More than the American rebels, more than their enemies in Europe, more than the angry commoners demonstrating on the streets, the Prime Minister feared his ministers, the men and women who sat at his table and drank his wine. It was a justified anxiety–his colleagues had ambition.

That’s from Ptolemy’s Gate, the third book in Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy, which I’m reading right now with my 12-year-old son. I really like the books, in no small part because–as the quote shows–Stroud gets politics. We might not see a lot of elected heroes in fantasy fiction for kids, but that doesn’t mean we don’t ever get a political education.