First Pages: Dragon Masters: Rise of the Earth Dragon
First Pages of Dragon Masters: Rise of the Earth Dragon: I feel like posting about the Dragon Masters series has been a long time in coming. You see, I would have thought I already featured this series as it is a much beloved one in this house. Little Lion Bookworm was introduced to this series by one of her fellow bookworm friends back in 1st grade. At the time, the level was higher than her reading level, so she wasn’t allowed to check it out from the classroom library.
She was determined to read Rise of the Earth Dragon, however, so she asked me to check it out at the school library for her. And then, she upped her reading skills!
Yesterday, I had a kindergartner come visit me in the office. While waiting, she and her mom were going through her sight words. Her wonderful teacher had created a ringed flashcard set that had cards with every color of the rainbow. She made it enticing to learn how to read! I thought it was a great idea. For our kids, we have to challenge them with things that may seem out of their reach. But, and this is a huge but, for our readers (emerging, reluctant, and voracious), we also need to let them read something of their own choosing. No matter the level. Just something for fun.
Back to the first book in the Dragon Masters series, Tracey West starts off by quickly establishing that Drake is doomed to be an onion farmer, even at age eight. THEN, he is immediately whisked away by one of the king’s knights….who leaves him to possibly be killed by a dragon. Talk about a cliff hanger!
The Dragon Masters series is part of the “Branches” section for Scholastic, a line of early chapter books that bridges the gap between leveled readers and chapter books. The language is appropriate for the reading level and there are many illustrations along the way. And West has the perfect timing of enticing the reader along with every new part of Drake’s adventure. So much so that three years later, Little Lion is still reading this series. She just read Land of the Spring Dragon, the fourteenth book that just came out last month!
Bonus: I just found out that West also writes under the pseudonym, Coco Simon. So she also wrote the Cupcake Diaries series that Mini Me read several years ago. I might have to pull those out for Little Lion to read too.
First Pages note: I started the First Lines and First Pages series in November 2017 as a homage to National Novel Writing Month. In the tradition of one of my previous writing groups, I decided to 'share' the first lines of successful middle grade and YA novels in order to figure out what made them successful first pages. I posted as many as I could in November, and now post the series on the first of every month (or close to it). Please let me know in the comment section if you have any First Pages book recommendations.
