Wow! Amazing!

This is a very promising and fun start to a series which is all about one thing I love - dragons. The characters are typical of this type of middle grade fantasy, children who are witty and intelligent and Dr Drake who is a mad kind of dragonologist. The style of writing is witty and easy to comprehend and the storyline is happy and enjoyable to read through (I read this in an hour and a half) and very short, but a lot happens and is set up and explained. I believe that the books will only continue to improve as I continue the series and I shall certainly be moving onto the next one soon as possible as this is so light-hearted and fun, my only complaint being I wish there was more, but I suppose the next book will solve that problem!
Recommended! :)

We follow Daniel and his sister Beatrice, as they begin their dragonological apprentice with doctor Ernest Drake. The first in the series, they must solve the riddle to discover the whereabouts of the fabled dragon’s eye gem. I loved that this author focuses on the education for these young apprentices and as readers we learn more about the history of dragons. A great start to the series.

Daniel and Beatrice have been staying with an uncle and are waiting for their parent's ship to dock (not sure where the uncle is but they are alone). The two haven't seen their parents in four years. While waiting, they get a note from their parents saying that the Prince of India still needs their help, they won't be coming home, and the two need to go stay with a Dr. Drake. Beatrice and Daniel arrive at Drake's place only to be kept waiting in his shop. Daniel hears a noise in the room next door and thinks he sees a dragon. Drake won't talk to him about it and the two find out that Drake runs a school in the summer on dragonology. The two become members of a secret society that keeps dragons a secret from humanity. Drake is in conflict with Ignatious who wants to be the Master Dragon and have the power to rule the world. He's in league with a Russian dragonologist who also has plans of her own. We never find out her goals. When Ignatious starts stealing artifacts it is up to Drake, Beatrice, and Drake to stop them.

Younger readers might be more forgiving of this book and swept up in the adventure but it fell short in many ways for me. As a character Drake is a dweeb and he's supposed to be the wise mentor or teacher. Problem? He's lousy at both. He is unfair with his treatment of Daniel whom he punishes for snooping around when Daniel hears a dragon flapping around in the room next door. Duh! Who wouldn't look in a room if some exotic creature was there. I was willing to buy it except he makes him spend an entire week reading inside. That didn't fit the crime. Drake is never upfront with Beatrice and Daniel and the author uses him to force the plot along. For instance, Daniel reads, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and learns about natural selection and his study of dragons on the Galapagos islands. By punishing him for the week the author was able to get in his information about dragons. Beatrice starts out as this fearless tough girl who isn't going to get her hat stolen but then she won't even check out the wild creature flapping in the room with Daniel. That seemed contrary to her character when we first meet her.

The adults avoid talking about things and this type of suspense building drives me crazy. Once used in a plot I can take, but when it is done time again by multiple characters then I get irritated by the lack of plot development. The author also reveals too much or not enough in the plot and it disrupts the pacing. When Billy meets Beatrice and Daniel an avalanche of information is provided. It could have been trickled out with the adults. Then they wouldn't have looked so inept. For instance, Daniel reads a long list of 12 treasures that are needed for the story's plot, but it was boring, and at that point all we needed to know was number 12. Fifty pages or so later when the other items are introduced than the information could have be given.

The setting needed more about the kids in boarding school and why their parents would leave them for 4 years. The uncle wasn't developed either. Why wasn't he with them at the beginning and then why was he the concerned uncle at the end getting the police involved so he could have the children? It wasn't consistent. More information is given later in the book that makes sense of the parents and why they couldn't see their children but I thought it should have been moved to the beginning. I kept thinking, why didn't the parents just bring the two with to India? The dragons aren't very scary which made it somewhat boring and there wasn't a resolution at the end of the story. Maybe the sequel will be better. I'll never know.

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It was an okay read, for me.
Everything happened very slowly, and I felt like the heroes just kept failing and losing. Losing sometimes is good, because it's more human, but always losing? That's a bit annoying. The only time they won was around the last pages, which I found a bit ridiculous and off putting.
They kept talking about how smart Dr. Drake is and they all expect him to be the next Dragon Master, but if he was so smart - why did he keep missing things and falling into traps, and basically leading the way for the villains? Throughout the story I got the impression Daniel and Beatrice were smarter than him! They solved riddles, they did stuff, while Dr. Drake kept relaying on his notebook for knowledge. The only thing he seemed good at was keeping the other two calm and pulling out facts about Dragons. His sparkle of wisdom came only at the end, for me. Knowing things and being smart are two different things... Anyway, the whole part frustrated me.
I also felt the action was minor and didn't generate the excited or hooked feelings I get from other reads. A book doesn't have to be action packed for me to like it, but I do think the parts that are action should be griping.
I was able to finish the book though, contrary to some books which I simply drifted into other novels while reading them because they didn't grab me enough. This book salvaging point is its interesting universe, filled with dragons and detailed description of them and their lives. I liked how the dragons mimic humans – some are stupid and think glass shreds are as valuable as real treasure; some are smart and know the real gold (they can also speak). Dragons have elders. Dragons protect their young. Dragons vary and each is different from the other.
In conclusion, I enjoyed reading about the dragons and the world created in the book despite the slow pace and sometime darn right boring and annoying bits, but I will not be buying the next book.

I truly believe that Dragons exist somewhere! Because if something hasn't been seen it might exist!

This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, I would just read it over and over again :'D

I loved the idea of this book ... but somewhere about midway through, I just couldn't bring myself to care much about the characters. The writing is good, however the pacing is slow [painfully so in parts], the characters rather dull and in the end the story just didn't pull me in. bummer. hopefully my 9 year old [the books target audience] will discover more magic in it than I did.

Wonderful book! I fell in love with all of the drawings, interesting concepts, and overall imagination that went into this book. It has in depth explanations of dragons and similar species as well as where they are found. You can also find fun stories and exciting adventures. I would easily recommend this book for children over 5 and anyone with an imagination and love for fantasy.

good book

Bought and read this with one of my oldest grand-daughters, who loved anything about dragons, seven years ago. We wanted the sequel so bad but finally gave up and forgot about it. Now there are four volumes and I am purchasing them for my youngest grand-sons. If you have grade school children, or grand- children, who love dragon or adventure stories this is is an excellent story about 12 year old Daniel Cook and his sister Beatrice who are about to find out about the existence and secret protection of dragons. They will also learn that their parents, who they have not seen for some time, are working In India for the colonial governmen, to care for and protect the secrecy of Dragons. They will also meet the evil, Ignatious Crook.

Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

As I read THE DRAGON'S EYE, I kept getting a feeling of deja vu. It took a while to figure out why, but then it came to me. THE DRAGON'S EYE reminded me a little of the SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS books. There was that familiar emphasis on conducting research, and recording findings in little notebooks, and solving problems. Only instead of three orphans dodging Count Olaf, THE DRAGON'S EYE focuses on a brother and sister trying to escape the evil designs of the inferior dragonologist, Ignatius Crook. Unfortunately, this one didn't have the same humor in it that I enjoyed so much in the SOUE books.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about THE DRAGON'S EYE. In the plus column, the novel was heavy on dragons of various types. They all have names and unique personalities. Also, it had an element of boy versus girl competition that seemed to resolve itself reasonably well.

On the other hand, the frequent references to dragon diaries and research methods disrupted the action. Doubtless that was the point -- to identify the importance of learning about a subject before jumping into it and conducting a poor study. But still, the execution was a little heavy-handed for my taste.

For young dragon lovers, this would probably be a popular title. I emphasize the word "young." THE DRAGON'S EYE seems geared to a younger audience than many of the books reviewed here at TeensReadToo. My 14-year-old son read it, too, and he was disappointed because it definitely felt "too young" for him. But for budding fantasy lovers who can't get enough dragons, this one has the potential to be a winner.