Dragon Masters Rise of the Earth Dragon by Tracy West & Graham Howells

West, T., & Howells, G. (2014). Rise of the earth dragon. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

Dragon Masters is an early childhood novel about a young man named Drake who is yanked from his home to be brought to King Rowland immediately.  Once there, he learns that he has been called by the Dragon Stone to become a Dragon Master.  There are three other children who have dragons, where they all train together, live together and are missing their families respectively.  Drake gets his dragon and names him Worm, the only Earth Dragon.   Worm isn’t the most flashy dragon of the bunch and tends to be more meek and mild compared to the other dragons.  Drake soon learns the true power of his dragon and how looks can be deceiving.

This book would be great for children in grades 3rd-5^th.

Dragon Masters is a magical children’s novel with many underlying themes for children to grasp as they read through the book.  The biggest theme that is portrayed is to get to know someone before you judge them from what they look like.  Worm seems like the lamest dragon out of the fourth that are kept at the king’s castle, but once Drake doesn’t judge him or treat him poorly because of it.  Worm ends up being incredible and helps the four children when they are in serious danger.  The book offers diversity, by having children of all different kinds of ethnicities, as well as their dragons representing their culture in some aspect.

What’s Inside?

Themes:  As I mentioned above, there is a moral theme that is being presented throughout the novel.  Children will be able to point this out of the story and realize that you cannot judge someone by the way they look.

Dialogue: The authors provide us with dialogue that is internal and external.  Characters speak aloud to each other to create conversation, as well as, Worm and Drake can communicate internally.

Onomatopoeia:  Drake blinked.  He didn’t believe his eyes. Then-WHOOSH!- the dragon shot a huge fireball from his mouth.

The illustrations are done in black and white, and do a really good job at representing each child and their culture without being stereotypical.

How can we teach this?

Another theme that the author uses is fantasy.  We can use a week of writer workshop to think of our own fantasy short stories.  Let your students write, edit, rewrite and finalize their own version of a fantasy story.  Then once the final copy is complete, it can be kept for portfolio.