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4.0 out of 5 stars
Be Prepared For a Wonderful Adventure, Mar 19 2004
Dragonworld is one the select few books that has stuck with me in an extraordinary way. The writing was incredibly vivid and engrossing. And even though I was at first a bit skeptical about the book having illustrations, I found those illustrations helpful in setting the atmosphere. I am the kind of reader who gets bored relatively easily; but I had no problem remaining interested in this story because once it started, it kept going at a face pace without a moment to spare. I sympathized, empathized and generally *cared* about all of the characters and their relationships with each other. Not only was each character compellingly and realistically developed, they all seamlessly fit into the story with no superfluous or extraneous details. The story itself is not unlike any reality based situation people might encounter. The misinterpretation of a tragic event by different groups of people leads to an uncalled for and, therefore, even more tragic war. In Dragonworld, it is up to one good-natured man to help right the wrongs to restore peace and initiate understanding and communication. And what an adventure he experiences while trying! As improvements go, I noticed only two. Firstly, I found the title a bit misleading. A book entitled "Dragonworld" implies dragons. This book had its share of dragon involvement, but not nearly as much as I expected. Quite frankly, I wanted more dragons!! Since these dragons were at the heart of the story, they should have been featured more. Had they been featured more, I would whole-heartedly give Dragonworld five stars. Secondly, the marvelous illustrations were less than marvelously placed. It is inevitable that a page break will interrupt a sentence; but, on top of page breaks, more often than not, the illustrations were placed in the middle of those sentences too. It was very distracting to have a beautifully written sentence interrupted by an illustration. Overall, Dragonworld is a concise, powerful, riveting and convincing story that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good adventure!
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