I pick up every book that has any indication if a dragon is involved. Then I read the summary and figure out if it's something I actually want to read or not. I was a bit on the fence about this one, but I ended up loving it despite some oddities.
An amazon summary, "Anya and the Dragon is the story of fantasy and mayhem in tenth century Eastern Europe, where headstrong eleven-year-old Anya is a daughter of the only Jewish family in her village. When her family’s livelihood is threatened by a bigoted magistrate, Anya is lured in by a friendly family of fools, who promise her money in exchange for helping them capture the last dragon in Kievan Rus. This seems easy enough, until she finds out that the scary old dragon isn't as old—or as scary—as everyone thought. Now Anya is faced with a choice: save the dragon, or save her family." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Anya has grown up on the outskirts of a small village where her family has used magic. Magic is technically outlawed/forbidden, but without anyone around to really monitor that law, it's kind of fair game to use magic. There's also something a little special about the village, it seems that they have more elements of magic than other villages. More magical creatures and more people who are in tune with using magic. Anya's family all seems to have their own attunements to magic, except for Anya who is still trying to figure it out.
Her father was shipped out to help with the war effort, and her mother has been threatened to pay taxes they shouldn't have to or risk losing their home. Anya is trying different ways to earn more coin to help her mother when a strange family who uses chaos magic comes to town. They're a family of fools and they've been sent to find the dragon. However, a marauder of sorts has also come to town, seeking the dragon. He's as rough as they come and threatens the priest until Anya and the fools step in to help. The fools enlist Anya's help in finding the dragon, and the more Anya learns about the dragon, she isn't sure it should be found afterall. After she catches a few glimpses of it, she finds it in her barn and learns it can speak, and starts to really understand the dragon more. Does she help the fools and her family, or does she help the dragon?
That's enough summary.
So first off, the time period and setting of this story was hard for me to figure out. The book summary indicates it's in tenth century eastern Europe, where her grandmother fled persecution and settled down with her grandfather on the outskirts of a small village. I honestly don't know enough about history, let alone European history to have any gauge if this is a likely scenario for the time period. However, I found it interesting that there also seemed to be a blend of cultures. Anya's family is Jewish, with some distinctly Jewish traditions, but they also were able to use magic, which isn't inherently Jewish, it's just something people may be able to do. As stories about a dragon unfold, there was a blurring of lines between Jewish culture and the history of magic and magical creatures. There were also times that it was hard to discern if Anya, being a young narrator, just didn't know any better? A few times she actively wondered about other people's families with a curiosity of like, "Wait, don't they also have this?" and half the time those things were unclear if that was a Jewish tradition or a magic tradition. ...and I kind of liked the ambiguity? Like blurring lines between cultures and the normal, as well, culture is normal. It's normal for people to have a historic background and traditions steeped within their daily life that come from that historic background. But it also kind of points to all of us being a part of history, and all of us having a place within the "normal". Yep, big thoughts.
Anyways. Anya as a character was pretty interesting. Something else that was a little jarring about this time period, is that they seemed to operate in the mindset of viewing people by their abilities rather than by their gender. So Anya was treated as equally as the boys. It was kind of refreshing, but also kind of weird, because I expected more gender boundaries. Perhaps gender boundaries are reserved for the rich who can afford for people not to be able to do everything. Overall, it was a refreshing aspect of the book.
Then there's the dragon. I thought the dragon's backstory, abilities, and even personality could have used some fine tuning. It came across as a very knowledgeable golden retriever who was just over eager to explore the world despite all the warnings it's care takers had given. It wasn't a typical dragon which was in of itself.
There was also magic throughout the book, like the family house spirit, or the grandmother making potions. It was woven in as such an every day aspect of life that it kind of didn't feel special, but expected. So that was a different and interesting take on it as well.
Overall, there will be a book two. I would like to read book two as I did like book one quite a bit.
Happy reading!
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