Dragon Knight Fire!
Book review by Trevor Agnew
Dragon Knight: Fire! (2015) Kyle Mewburn, ill. Donovan Bixley, Scholastic NZ, Auckland, NZ, 96 pages, paperback, ISBN 978 1 77543 259 3
This first volume in the Dragon Knight series does a
skilful job of establishing the premise and the main characters of what is
going to be a popular series. ‘Dragon Knight’ is also an accurate precis of
Kyle Mewburn’s medieval comic saga.
Young Merek is hoping to become a knight in shining armour. The bad news
for Merek (but good news for readers) is that Merek is also a shape-shifter,
who spends some of his time as a dragon. In fact he has spikes in place of hair
and sometimes sports a tail.
Merek duly attends knight school – yes, there are worse
puns lurking in Mewburn’s prose – with his new friend Brin (who has a secret)
and the malignant Percy – a junior Blackadder type. We have lots of swords and armour jokes as
Sir Bragalot, “the most famous knight in
the kingdom,” trains his unruly class of would-be knights.
Merek’s mother and father are also shape-shifters –
part-time dragons. In a typical Mewburn jest, Merek’s father has joined the
local Fire Brigade. “How was I supposed
to know a fire brigade put out fires?” grumps Dad.
The tale is full of knock-about humour and fart jokes,
with Merek always a jump ahead of disaster. Even the simplest of Merek’s
sneezes can start a fire, so there are plenty of conflagrations and
confrontations.
Donovan Bixley’s illustrations are an integral part of
the story and add significantly to the mayhem. His delightfully detailed (and
often gleefully disgusting) illustrations include a handsome map of Merek’s
village, a guide to the Isle Beback Castle and an introduction to the principal
features of dragons.
Fans of the Dinosaur Rescue series, especially those of
the male persuasion, will love the Dragon Knight series. Readers of the female
persuasion will have spotted something that Merek has not – there are more
female characters than one might suspect.
Trevor Agnew
24 Feb 2015
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