Bloody Well Avoid This Dragon's Blood!

Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen

Dragon's Blood was meant to be a gift to my 13-year-old niece. After reading the book, I found another gift. I can't in good conscience send Jane Yolen's Dragon's Blood to her. This despite the fact that it is an ALA recommended book. This despite the fact that I've been willing to send her poorly written books for the purpose of helping her read more critically.

But I'm a parent myself and I'm very fond of my niece's parents and don't want to damage the relationship I have with them by sending her a book with so many questionable elements in it. Certainly it isn't a book that I would give to my 13-year old son or daughter.

However, there are many who would disagree with me, so let me be more detailed about my objections to this book. It is the story of Jakkin, a young boy who is a bond servant at a dragon farm. The whole story takes place on a faraway planet, Austair IV whose economy is based around dragons who fight in pits. It is a former penal colony and people are divided up into masters and bonders. The bonders are the equivalent of indentured servants and they must "fill their bag" before they can be free. The bag is worn around their neck at all times and their coins are put into the bag until they have enough to be free. The masters are primarily dragon owners, breeders, and fighters.

Jakkin works as a stallboy in the stable where the male dragons are kept for breeding. He helps to bathe the dragons and clean out their stalls. He dreams of freedom, though, and plans to achieve it by stealing a dragon hatchling and raising it to be a fighter.

This is where my trouble with this book begins. First, I'm not overly thrilled with a world where slavery is still looked upon as an acceptable practice. Most of the bonders are looked upon with contempt, as they have been unable to fill their bags or keep them full. The overall attitude in the book is that most bonders deserve their slavery because they are poor and unable to handle money.

My second complaint is that an act of thievery is looked upon as not only a permissible thing, but an honorable act that sorts the "men" from the "graft" or the "masters" from the "bonders."

My third objection is the description of the "baggeries." Keep in mind that this book is supposed to be for young adults. So it makes me highly uncomfortable to read about whore houses where most female bonders work. The male bonders go there to "fill the women like bags." That isn't the sort of imagery that belongs in a book for young adults. Especially not when there seems little role for women outside of baggeries on this planet. There are those who have escaped that life, but the general consensus is that they "belong" there.

The mere presence of any of these three elements-slavery, thievery, and prostitution-I would be willing to accept if they were put into some sort of context that would at least show the downside of these actions. Indeed, I worried that perhaps I was being a bit prudish, so I gave the book to my husband to read. He agreed that we should not give it to our niece. His reasons were that the writing was bad and that there was drug use in the book. I had completely overlooked that element, but he's correct. Many of the characters smoke a type of weed native to the planet that has effects similar to marijuana. However, at least the characters who become drug addicts (or "weeders") have some sort of consequence for their addiction.

Jane Yolen has written many wonderful books and she's an author I would normally feel comfortable with recommending. She's even taken some fairly difficult topics and turned them into absolutely wonderful novels. So I'm disappointed that this one left me so cold. I almost feel as though she was inattentive to the issues that were being raised, that the things I have made complaints about were merely unimportant background to her.

Dragon's Blood was first written in 1982 and it is the first of her Pit Dragon Trilogy which also includes Heart's Blood and A Sending of Dragons. She wrote on her home page that the two main characters, Jakkin and Akki, were based on her now grown son and daughter. While those particular characters are delightful, I'm afraid the interesting characterization cannot make up for the other flaws in this book.

Would I recommend this book for an adult? That's a tougher question to answer. Personally, I won't be re-reading it. It took only a few hours to read so I can't complain that it was a waste of time, but neither was it very compelling. The dragons were interesting and the telepathic communication via colors instead of words was interesting. She also had a few very poetic moments.

For the most part, though, this is a book that I'd recommend skipping. Instead, find and read Jane Yolen's Briar Rose. It's an incredible novel that shows off all of her strengths.