Raising Dragons (Dragons in Our Midst, #1)

by Bryan Davis

[Charli G.]

Title: Raising Dragons
Author: Bryan Davis
# of Pages: Paperback, 371
Genre: Christian, Fantasy, YA, Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: Living Ink Books
Source: Church Library

Synopsis: A boy learns of his dragon past; a girl has known of hers for years. They combine their faith, courage, and love to overcome an evil slayer who seeks to bring an end to dragon heritage, forever.

The kids at school call Billy “Dragon Breath” for good reason. His breath is bad! It isn’t the normal morning-mouth bad; it’s the hot as fire, “don’t –you-dare-get-near-me” bad. Trouble erupts when his hot breath sets off the fire sprinklers in the boys’ restroom at school, and his parents learn that they’ve kept their secret for too long.

Billy finally discovers the secret. His father was once a dragon! Now that’s a piece of news a guy doesn’t deal with every day! Billy feels betrayed, alien, lost. When the dragon slayer traps him on a cold mountaintop in West Virginia, Billy learns to battle with weapons of steel and spirit while relying on a power he doesn’t understand, a power that helps him learn to trust again.

Bonnie, an orphan, tries to find a home, someone to love her, even though she feels like a freak because of a body feature that she calls a deformity. But this unusual feature becomes a life-saving attribute as she discovers that her love for others and her faith in a creator hold the answers she’s looking for.

Raising Dragons is a contemporary fantasy novel that inspires young people to dig deep within to find their God-given strengths and use them to overcome any obstacle. It is both a hair-raising, modern-day adventure and a glimpse into another world—a world of knights, dragons, and fair maidens.

My Review:

While I do not often read Christian-faith based books, my love of all things fairy, dragon, etc and my love of fantasy novels led me to read this particular book.

I have to say that Bryan Davis does an excellent job of fleshing out the main characters – giving us background as to how Billy’s father could once have been a dragon and how he became human instead of dragon. Of course, you do have to get a bit into the book before you’ll find this out.

You also get a good bit of information on Dr. Whittier, although Mr. Hamilton isn’t completely explained – there are things that I still had questions about after finishing the novel. Of course, this is only the first in a series, so it is entirely possibly that Mr. Hamilton is more fully explained and fleshed out in other novels.

Bonnie Silver is the one character who isn’t really fleshed out, although from all indications this is to come in later novels, I would really have liked to have seen more background on her character as frankly, she is a main character in the book.

The plot of the novel keeps you guessing what will happen next, and although in a few spots it is predictable, it really does make for a page turner – if you have time to keep reading it, since you won’t want to put it down.

If you read Christian fiction, I highly recommend this book – for both adults and teens alike.

My Rating: ****