World Famous Comics: Dragon's Blood: The Pit Dragon Chronicles, Volume One (Pit Dragon Chronicles)
Dragon's Blood: The Pit Dragon Chronicles, Volume One (Pit Dragon Chronicles)
By: Jane Yolen Publisher: Magic Carpet Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Magic Carpet Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: May 01, 2004 Reading Level: Young Adult
Dragon's Blood ... A Must Read! "I will fill my own bag" was a quote made several times by the main character, Jakkin Stewart. His "bag" was a pouch he kept hanging around his neck (like all the slaves) and it contained gold coins. Fifteen-year old Jakkin Stewart is a bond servant in Master Sarkkhan's dragon barns. Jakkin decided his only hope to earn his freedom is to steal a dragon to secretly train as a fighter. In the end--Jakkin did earn his freedom.
The author,Jane Yolen, was born in New York City on February 11, 1939 and raised in California, New York, and Connecticut. Her father was a teacher in history. She received her bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1960 and a master's degree in education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1976. She has three children: Heidi Stemple, Adam Stemple, and Jason Stemple she also has several grandchildren. She was married to a computer scientist David Stemple from 1962 until his death from cancer on March 22, 2006.
The emotional impact the book had on me was it kept me in suspense throughout each chapter. If you enjoy stories about dragon adventures, this is a must read for you. It was full of action and suspense.
Dragon's Blood Jakkin is a fifteen year old bonder (essentially a slave) whose father was a dragon trainer who was killed by a savage dragon in the wilderness when he was only a child. Jakkin's only hope for freedom is raising a prize dragon and gathering enough money to buy his independence. After a recent hatching, Jakkin steals an uncounted dragon from her mother and takes her to the desert and trains her into a pit fighter from a small oasis in the hills. This book is extremely well written. It has intense description throughout the entire book. Yolen shows great imagination in every sentence and she used the dragons to a great extent to increase the entertainment taken from the book. In her description of the planet Austar IV, Yolen left nothing out. How she explained the history of the place was superb.When Jakkin first took the dragon after hatching, she described how he snuck her out into the hills with great detail, down to the removal of his footprints from the shifting sands. Her description of characters is just as vivid, she describes Likkarn down to his blister weed stained eyes. When you read Dragon's Blood, you can tell how imaginative Yolen truly is. How she had told how humans first came to inhabit the planet was obviously only her own. Her development of characters was great, even her dialogue was deep. When Yolen chose to write a book revolving around dragons, she made a good choice. She has obviously done her research on the subject. She uses every bit of her knowledge to create a lifelike environment (or, at least as lifelike as dragons can be). The entire pit fighting dragons create an atmosphere that brings the book together, but it also throws you off for the next books. This is an overall great book, and although this book was written for children, I think it is more suited for adult or young agult readers. Yolen's writing style is great, and I think almost anyone would enjoy her and her writing.
Thy Beauty
Dragon's Blood is written by Jane Yolen. The book takes place in the future on a planet called Austar IV. Jakkin, the main character, is a bonder which is basically a slave who tries to fill his bag with gold and become a master by filling their bag. Jakkin has friends and is well supplied with food and a bed. But that's not all that Jakkin wants. His dream is to have his own dragon. He knows the dragons that he takes care of by heart but those dragons are not his. Then one day he steals a hurt Hatchling and tries to train it. Life goes on and Jakkin's dragon gets older and bigger and is almost ready for the pits, a place where dragons play a fighting game. But what Jakkin was most worried about was keeping his dragon out of sight. Can Jakkin keep his dragon out of sight or will somebody find his dragon and do something bad to it? I think Jane Yolen wrote this book because she wanted to tell everybody that big secrets are sometimes hard to keep away from people and sometimes you just have to give them away so you can live with out being worried all the time.
I think this book is filled with friends, enemies and secrets. It is one of the most suspenseful books I've ever read. If you like dragons and secrets [that are extremely big] this is the book for you!
Dragon's Blood Jakkin is really into dragon's so he decides to steal one for himself. He realizes that raising a dragon is a lot harder than he thought. But he sticks to it and his dragon becomes great, to him anyways. He takes him to the pits where he meets the last person he wanted to meet at the time. Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood would be great for teenager readers of either gender that are interested in fantasy books. I read this book because I thought the cover looked interesting. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I'm glad I did with this one!
Jakkin is a slave boy that works on a dragon farm. He loves dragons and wants one of his own. He decides to steal one from his master, Master Sarkkhan. He takes the hatchling into the desert to an oasis. Every night, before Dark After, he goes to the oasis and feeds his little hatchling. As the dragon grows, Jakkin starts to teach him about being a fighter. His friend, Akki, is the only one that knows about his dragon. She brings him books about training dragons and Jakkin teachs what he learns from them to his dragon. Akki helps him more and more and the other boys start teasing him about her. The dragon is soon bigger than Jakkin himself. The dragon is starting to become the rich red color that only the greatest fighters have and the color that Jakkin had been hoping it would be. A year goes by and the dragon is now bigger than the other dragons its age. Jakkin really want shis dragon to go to the pits and Akki surprises him with a registration form. Akki gets one of her friends to take Jakkin and his dragon to the pits.
Jakkin is just like any other of the bonder boys on the outside, but on the inside he is so much different. He actually loves the dragons and cares for them not just because he as to, but because he likes to. He is shy towards the girls, but acts normal around everyone else.
The setting is on the planet of Austar IV. Master Sarkkhan's farm is in the middle of the desert. The way they dress makes me think of Africa. It is mostly desert around them, but there are some mountains in the distance. There are some trees, which is unusual for the desert.
The theme of the story was that the dragons were in the center of everything. When Blood Brother was killed by Likkarn, everyone was sad and Master Sarkkhan was mad at Likkarn because he could have just stunned the best cock dragon he owned instead of killing him. Through out the whole book, Jakkin goes out every chance he can to visit his dragon and his life revolves around the dragon. Jakkin grew up with the dragons. His father used to train dragons, but was killed when he was trying to train a feral, wild, dragon. Then Jakkin went into slavery at Master Sarkkhan's farm and has worked with dragons ever since.
The story is told by a narrator, but is focused mainly on Jakkin's life. It is an adventure and fantasy story. Jane Yolen uses lots of description in this book. Every little thing is described in great detail. There is lots of dialogue in this book, but what the characters talk about is always interesting. The setting to this story is very important. If there as in oasis in the desert that no one knew about, then Jakkin wouldn't have had a place to raise his dragon.
I don't think Dragon's Blood had any weakness really. I would have liked Akki to stay with Jakkin, but when she went away, it made the story more interesting. Other than that, I think the book was fine the way it was.
I enjoy the book very much. It was very interesting. Jakkin was a great main character and really feel like I got to know him. I would certainly recommend this book. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the Pit Dragon Chronicles!
Avoid. Avoid. AVOID! I think Jane Yolen made a serious misstep in writing this book. She aimed it for kids, but the world she created would have been perfectly suited for something more adult.
Austar IV is an ugly place filled with criminals set on doing ugly things to themselves and the dragons that they fight in arenas. Most of the descriptions the author paints for us makes you want to wince. Weeds that smoke and burn, hot desert with freezing nights cold enough to kill, dragon scales and tongues that cut and scrape, blood that eats though human flesh like acid.
The character names are annoying to say the least. Jakkin and Akki and any number others characters with multiple K's in their name. It isn't explained until near the end the reason why this is the case, and by the time it came down to it, I had a headache.
Again, I think this would have been a lot better as an adult book because then the author could have elaborated on her dusty dirty world and the sad people that inhabit it. Instead we are given half references to prostitutes and drug addiction that could have been put into a decent plot, but was just left hanging there.
The ending was pretty bad as well. The man Jakkin looks up too pretty much ties up all of the loose ends in the plot with a grandiose explanation. He reminded me of a James Bond villain, explaining his motives right at the end so that the viewer doesn't miss anything. Basically, the end was for a kid's book while the entire plot up until that point was good for adults.
This book was a disappointment after seeing so many good reviews.
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