The Dragon of Lonely Island
The Dragon of Lonely Island series, Book 1
Rebecca Rupp
Candlewick Press
Fiction, CH Fantasy
Themes: Dragons
***+
Description
Hannah, Zachary, and Sara Emily aren't too thrilled to be spending the summer at their peculiar Aunt Mehitabel's island home, an old Victorian house on Lonely Island, off the coast of Maine. It's not that they don't like their aunt - actually their great-great aunt. It's that she won't even be there. It's just the three kids, their mother (who will be spending most of her time writing her latest mystery book), and two caretakers, stuck on a dreary little island accessible only by boat. Hanna will miss her friends. Zachary will miss his privacy and his collection of science books. Sara Emily is afraid of most anything new. Once they're at Lonely Island, however, things start to look up. Aunt Mehitabel's house is a wonder of rooms, passages and treasures from around the globe.... but that isn't the most impressive thing about Lonely Island. In a cave within the rocky Drake's Hill on the far end of the island, the kids find a three-headed dragon, or "tridrake" as it prefers to be known. The tridrake Fafnyr tells them a story for each one of its heads. In hearing them, the children learn what it means to be a Dragon Friend.
Review
The biggest flaw with this book is that it's a story about other stories. The kids listen to the story of each dragon head in turn, but have little of their own to contribute to the tale. True, they each learn something from the tridrake, but I had expected the three of them to have their own story to add to the legend, especially considering how much time the author spends establishing the kids, the caretakers, and the contents of the house. In the tridrake's tales, people had to work hard and do great things before and after meeting Fafnyr. The kids seemed to be getting a free ride, since all they had to do was find a cave on a small island. Still, it's a fast read, and the stories the tridrake tells are imaginative and well-written. I also found the author's solution to the often-troublesome concept of multiheaded dragons unique. Though they share one body and all memories, each head has a distinct personality, and only one is awake at a time. So, the same dragon can be a bold defender, a greedy hoarder, or an aloof scientist and artist, depending on which head is in control. This nice little plot device was much more interesting than the usual arguing heads (the heads can't agree on anything and spend more time fighting with each other than interacting with other characters or the plotline) or stereo-voices (the heads share a mind and all speak together, or one by one in turn to finish sentences) approach other authors use.