Dragonhaven

Robin McKinley is a master of faery tales and is able to take the here and now and add a twist of fantasy, in this case dragons, and make it seem completely real and possible. In Dragonhaven, the main character, Jake, lives on the only dragon reserve in America. On his first solo trip in the park, Jake stumbles across a dying dragon and her litter. The poacher is dead and as the mother dies, he feels the compulsion to grab the only baby left alive and to keep her that way. Following his rescue is the craziness of raising an illegal dragon, whom he calls Lois, and the threat of the government bearing down of the reserve because of the poacher's death. The point of view is what I feel made the story perfectly complete. It departs from the normal McKinley and puts you into the shoes of a frantic and clueless teenage boy. The storytelling is choppy and breathless with adolescent slang that can get a bit annoying, but at the same time, reminds me of my little brother and how he speaks and acts. The voice the McKinley uses fits and I can't imagine that the book could possibly be better without it. A sophisticated and mature sounding third person voice would destroy the entire story and just make it, frankly, a piece of crap. Jake is only 15, and going through a whole lot of stuff that is confusing and he doesn't know what is going on half the time. It makes sense to have him "writing" the story. Once again, McKinley shows that she can really bring a story to life. Wonderfully crafted. I recommend it for a slightly younger crowd of readers.

i did not want this book to end. what a great and emotionally charged story. it makes me hope that in reality we have a chance to

Robin McKinley writes consistently well-imagined stories, and Dragonhaven is no exception. The protagonist in this book is a teen boy, and his voice shines through. The setting of Dragonhaven is rich with compelling details. The overarching plot can be predicted by experienced readers of fantasy, but, just as in McKinley's Beauty and Rose Daughter, the focus of the book is not on plot but on character and setting. I would recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed McKinley's previous works, as well as any fan of dragon-related tales such as Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1) or Inkheart. This book is appropriate for young teens and older preteens.

Ya know... I fully expected to hate this book. I read the other reviews and was sure it was my worst nightmare come true. I LOVED Sunshine, but found the long stretches on baking buns boring. Seemed from what I read that DragonHaven was going to be lots of the BBB. It was. There are places I skimmed because it was too repetitive. Most of the time Jake came off to me as nine rather than seventeen. His thoughts wander all over the place. But I don't care. I love this books. When I finished I got weepy, and I'm not a weepy person. The last book I felt that intense, emotional, touchiness over was OSC's Speaker for the Dead, and I think my weepiness happened here for the same reason as it did there. DragonHaven has something elemental in the story that helps to define for me what it means to be human. I don't know how better to explain it. This is not a dragon book filled with action and adventure and drama. It isn't meant to be, but rather an exploration. It was a wonderful journey for me and I would highly recommend it. I'd also add that it seemed like DH was marketted as a book for the young reader set. I'd say that while Jake's age was young, this is an adult book.

This is not another cutesy story about telepathic dragons. This story is about how anybody ever succeeds in communicating. McKinley is remarkabley convincing in her teenage protagonist and his first person story. The concentration on the theme of communications is what makes this different and intriguing. The narrator's constant attempts to find ways to tell us, the readers, the story are echoed in his attempts to reach the dragons. It is rare to find such a clear portrayal of the difficulties of presentation and interpretation of information and ideas between truely different parties. Language shapes how (and what) people can think. Concepts exist in some languages that are unthinkable in others. Languages reflect what is important to their native speakers. That is what we refer to in the old example of all of the various words for snow and its different conditions in the Eskimo tongue. Anyone who has attempted to do translations from one language to another is familiar with the problem. How we might communicate with an alien species must be, at heart, a speculation on what they would find important and worthy of description and of contemplation. I find it quite believable that the dragons of Shadowhill would think so differently from us that interpretation or translation would be virtually impossible. McKinley makes it clear to us how inadequate our language is in this process. She shows us how perhaps the only way such a communications chasm might be overcome is by having infants and children reared 'bilingually'. McKinley's prose has, in past, been impressive. Clear, evocative, moving, frequently poetic. The fact that this book is written the way it is reflects her expression of the inadequacy of language in the story the narrator has to tell. This point could never have been made so persuaively in easy flowing narration. As readers, we are forced to recognize the difficulty a teenager, a misfit (and what teenager has not felt like one), and a human being has abt trying to convey what, in essence, is a first contact with an alien culture. Every character in the book is shown in terms of their deficiencies in their abilities to communicate. From the Native American who won't speak English to the grief stricken father. Shadowhill can't communicate with the outside world any better than the outside world's media can reach the public. What better a subject for a young adult novel?