I enjoyed the anime-style series very much indeed, as well as its "70 years later" sequel Korra, and when I found that there was going to be a three-volume series covering the time after the anime, when our heroes have to rebuild the world they've won, I put it on my list at once. I found the first two volumes at Newbury Comics during a buy-two-get-one-free sale - hooray! (Update: there's also an omnibus edition of The Promise.)

This volume opens with a "how we got here" summary, and leads into the main concept: the Earth King (I love the Earth King, and was delighted to see him again) wants to have all of the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom withdraw, so that the Earth Kingdom will be completely free again. The new Fire Lord Zuko agrees with this, and Aang chimes in to offer help in making the process as peaceful as possible. So far, so good - but we also get to see how fearful Zuko is of becoming like his father and abusing his power. He asks Aang to promise that if he ever does go bad, Aang will end him. Aang doesn't want to make such a pledge, but Zuko pretty much begs him, and so he does.

But that won't become necessary, will it? WILL IT???

Ahem. Zuko soon finds out that not all of the Fire Nation colonists in the Earth Kingdom *want* to be repatriated, and many of them are willing to fight to stay. And, to complicate matters, some of the Earth Kingdom folk who've been living in the same colonies don't want a change either. Zuko, agonizing over the difficult decisions of being a leader, opts to back off on the forced-repatriation plan, but this puts him at odds with Aang, and things get tense. Zuko risks losing the most important person in his life, and winds up going back to his imprisoned father to ask for advice - boy, is that ever a bad idea... Poor Zuko!

The story's not relentlessly grim, though the issues are serious ones. On the side we get lots of familiar bickering and bantering among the characters, and meet some interesting new ones. Fingers crossed that the gaang can work out their differences!

[The TV Tropes page for the series is very entertaining, but do beware of spoilers if you haven't seen it yet.]

The series:

Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three

I left this and several other books in the Little Free Library on Maple St. at around 4:30 or so. Hope the finder enjoys it! (I was amused to find that the LFL is sponsored by Breakwind Farm, which offers organic baked beans; clever name, and a perfect tie-in for a series about an airbender {grin}.)

*** Released for the 2014 Four Elements challenge, for the embedded "air" in the title. ***