Aerie and I finished reading Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul today. It has been her morning read aloud for nearly nine weeks. Despite it's length, I am glad that we read it. I haven't really ever read Christian fiction before this book. I think that Aerie enjoyed it. I loved the discussions that resulted. (I give it four out of five stars.) It had a good message and Aerie didn't even realize it was Christian fiction until I pointed it out to her.
This book reminded me of C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series. Kale Allerion, a slave girl, has a talent for finding dragon eggs. She is freed because of this talent and ends up on a quest to find a special egg that the evil Wizard Risto has stolen. On this quest, she learns about friendship, about confidence, about trusting others, and about trusting herself. Most importantly, she learns about her own self-worth. There is a lot of adventure and a lot of opportunity for good discussion. Once Aerie realized that Paladin was a symbol for Jesus and Wulder was like God, she really had a lot to talk about!
(Note: This book is difficult to read aloud. Kale has the talent of mind speaking--telepathic communication--and often thinks to herself. It was difficult to keep track of when she was speaking aloud, when she was thinking to herself, and when she was mind-speaking to another person. )
The author creates a fantasy world very different from our own, with seven "high" races created by Wulder, and seven "low" races created by Risto. It got a little confusing sometimes with the different races (o'rants, doneels, emerlindians, quiss) and the different animals (blimmets, druddums) and the different types of trees (borling, armagot, cygnot) but not so confusing that you lost track of who was what, etc.
A great girl power book that boys would enjoy as well. I would say eleven to fourteen year olds (and fantasy lovers of all ages) would most appreciate this book. Aerie is interested in reading the sequel but is frantically reading the 2010 Beehive Book Award nominees right now, so number two, DragonQuest, will have to wait. Our next reading read aloud book is My 100 Adventures by Polly Horvath.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
(I started marking favorite excerpts from the book about nearly 3/4 of the way through the book, so I probably missed a lot of good ones!)
"That's the problem all too many times. . . ambition, pride. In some cases it's dangerous to want to be better and prove it."
"When you beat back that pride that wants to say, 'I'm big' then you are in a position to learn."
"Quests are quite interesting except for the uncomfortable parts."
"Still, he can't cook. He's my friend though, and you have to make allowances for friends. None of them are perfect. Very few of them can cook."
"You are more than my servant. You are my friend, my child, my vision of the future."
Sometimes the order of importance of our responsibilities shifts. What was crucial at one moment moves down to second place, or third, under different circumstances.
"Nothing? You went to university so that in a time of crisis you come up with nothing? Preposterous. We should have brought a plumber instead of a librarian!"
The wizard often complained about Librettowit's lack of culinary skill, to which the tumanhofer replied, "I'm a librarian."
"Librarians are handy."
(I have a secret desire to become a children's librarian, so the librarian quotes were quite funny to me!)
I share your secret desire to be a children's librarian. I often picture myself doing that when my kids are grown.
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