The Fire Within
(The Dragon trilogy, Book 1)
Chris D'Lacey
Orchard Books
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**
DESCRIPTION: "Housing Available - Meals and laundry included - Must like children and cats and dragons," read the ad, and David Rain, a college student on a tight budget, answered eagerly, even if he was a little unclear on the last bit. Liz Pennykettle lives with her assertive daughter Lucy, almost 11, an odd tabby cat named Bonnington, and a wide assortment of clay dragons, present in every room of the house. Liz makes them in her private workroom to sell at local craft fairs. Each dragon is a unique creation with its own special spark, each almost alive - or more than almost. The dragon she makes for David, clutching a notepad and chewing a pencil, seems to come alive in his mind, at least, compelling him to write a story about the one-eyed squirrel in the yard. Lucy has named the squirrel Conker, and he seems to be in danger from a number of threats, including the surly next door neighbor, natural predators, and starvation. Somehow, through the dragon and the story he writes, David and Lucy seem obligated to help.
REVIEW: I hate books that squander great ideas. I also hate books that give away more in the dust jacket teaser than the book itself gives away for most of its length.
That said, I had a number of other problems with this story. Though pitched at an audience closer to Lucy's age, the focus is on twenty-year-old David, who is not only a little
old for the target audience to relate to, but hardly seems to behave like a normal college boy. (I would also think, in this day and age, that a single mother might think
twice about taking in a stranger, no matter how many dragons are lurking, but that's a minor quibble compared to the rest of the story's issues.) The stuff the dust jacket talks
about and the cover image relates to doesn't come out in the story until very close to the end, though it's painfully clear from the first few pages that the Pennykettles are
hiding some big secret and the dragons have greater significance than mere decorations. Unfortunately, most of the book is devoted to Conker's plight, both the family's efforts
to save the squirrel and David's efforts to appease Lucy by writing - under his dragon's inspiration - the story of Conker in a distinctly Redwall-influenced manner. Now,
I'm speaking as a dracophile, but if I had a story that dealt with silly squirrels and dignified dragons - not just dragons, mind you, but clay dragon sculptures with the spark
of life in them - and I had to decide which one to focus on, I certainly wouldn't pick the squirrels. I also found Lucy irritatingly pushy and rude. Most of the book boils down
to a bunch of adults being manipulated by her whims, which take peculiar precedence over their own lives or common sense. David himself is hardly the brightest bulb; he has
several near-revelations concerning the truth about the Pennykettle dragons, but, in true Plot-Extending Stupidity fashion, ignores them all until the very end, in a sequence
that seemed crafted for another book entirely and raised more questions than it answered. Once he does catch on, he seems very confused that his attempts to explain the
astounding truth to others are met with mockery and disbelief. As for Conker's story, the latter part of it defies logic if you have any knowledge of wildlife and veterinary
practices. The entire dragon subplot seemed better suited to another story entirely, one where the dragons wouldn't be playing second fiddle to stories about talking squirrels.
They would've been better served in a series of short stories, as each dragon Liz sold found their way into the hands of various people who needed them most in their lives. Why
bother with clay dragons at all if the book was really about squirrels? Why didn't Liz make a variety of animal sculptures, so David could've at least been inspired by a clay
squirrel? Why not make David a cousin closer to Lucy's age, perhaps moving in after some family tragedy (and thus giving the title a deeper meaning, as his dragon helps him deal
with post-traumatic anger)? This book is such a bizarre amalgamation of ideas that I have to wonder if the author, stuck with two or more half-stories he couldn't finish, finally
decided to play Frankenstein and stitch them together into one unnatural creation. Perhaps a younger kid wouldn't be quite so annoyed at the wasted ideas, often-annoying
characters, and pointless plot contrivances, but I suspect that any kid bright enough to try reading a book this size might catch on that the story promised by the title and
jacket is not the one being delivered.
At any rate, I have a suggestion to those who might see this book on the shelves and wish to buy it. Pick the book up. Appreciate the cover. Read the dust jacket teaser. Close
your eyes and imagine a story about what you've just seen and read. Then open your eyes, put the book back on the shelf, and leave the bookstore. I can almost guarantee that
whatever story you imagined made better use of the promised premise of The Fire Within than the actual book did, and it was much cheaper. (As a closing note, I saw this
filed under Teen Fiction once. I cannot imagine the teenager immature to find this book absorbing. Even pre-teen's pushing it.)
You might also enjoy:
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - A boy buys a dragon egg in a magic shop)
Hatching Magic (Ann Downer, YA Fiction - A medieval wizard's wyvern familiar travels through a magical portal to modern Boston to lay her egg)
Dragonsdale (Salamanda Drake, YA Fiction - At a special riding school, human children learn to ride dragons - except for the stable owner's daughter, forbidden to fly by her father)
The Stoneheart trilogy (Charlie Fletcher, YA Fiction - A boy finds himself in the middle of an invisible war between London's statues and gargoyles)
The Inkheart trilogy (Cornelia Funke, YA Fiction - A girl's father has a gift for reading items out of books, including the heroes... and the villains)
The Book of Story Beginnings (Kristin Kladstrup, YA Fiction - Writing stories in a special journal makes them spring to life)
Eragon (Christopher Paolini, Fiction - A farmer boy finds a dragon's egg)
The Dragon that Ate Summer (Brenda Seabrooke, YA Fiction - A boy finds a little blue dragon in his mother's garden)
The Dragonology books (Dugald A. Steer, editor, YA Fiction - Notes on dragon species from around the world)
How to Raise and Keep a Dragon (John Topsell, Joseph Nigg "editor", YA Fiction - The art and science of dragon ownership)
The Pit Dragon Chronicles (Jane Yolen, YA Fiction - A slave boy on Austar IV, young Jakkin steals an egg from his master to raise his own fighting dragon for the betting pits)
The Dragonback Adventures (Timothy Zahn, YA Fiction - A teen thief of the future finds himself stuck with an honor-bound dragonlike alien)
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