The Hunting of the Last Dragon
by Sherryl Jordan

Set in the West of England, A.D. 1356, this is the tale from the twilight of the Middle Ages, when dragons were passing from the realm of live superstition to fanciful folk-tales, when the bubonic plague was a fresh and painful memory, and when the idea of an educated populace reading mass quanitites of books in English was still but the dream of an ambitious abbot whose monks copied books by hand with goose-feather quills and parchment.

One of those monks is assigned the task of recording the first-hand account of Jude of Doran, a swineherd's son who, by chance alone, survives the destruction of his village and family by the last, late-blooming dragon. Now, don't go running away with the idea that Jude immediately swears revenge and valiantly goes forth to slay the worm. Actually, Jude spends most of the book struggling with his terror, grief, and self-hatred, while also learning to love a beautiful woman from a faraway land.

Jing-Wei, lately known as Lizzie Little-foot, is a daughter of Chinese nobility who was shipwrecked on an English shore. Brought up by gypsies and later kept in a cage as a freak for a traveling show, her plight touches a place in Jude's heart...or perhaps it's just that she reminds him of his dead sister. Together with an ancient crone who may or may not be a witch, Jing-Wei teaches Jude to find the courage within himself to face the dragon that killed his family, and more importantly, to slay the dragon within himself. She teaches him that knowledge is strength, that fear is having faith in your enemy, and that true love is its own kind of courage. And she shows him a very novel method of destroying a very nasty beast.

Part love story, part gripping adventure, part meditation on the role of women in medieval China and of minorities in medieval England, part amazing fantasy that combines history and fantasy with astounding ease, this is a dragonslayer tale of rare simplicity and effortless beauty. I think most who read it will enjoy it; some, indeed, will treasure it.

Robbie Fischer

Recommended Age: 12+

1/30/2005

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