Summer Dragons

By Holly Haggarty

Ten-year-old Elizabeth is spending the summer at her Great-Aunt Germaines, in rural Caradoc County. Also along for the visit is her brother, Eddie, and her mother. Great-Aunt Germaine seems to be a forbidding character, and Beth does not warm up to her. Between her relationship with Aunt Germaine and Eddies antics, Elizabeth feels overwhelmed. She discovers her aunts emporium, a former tourist attraction. It is a fascinating place, filled with memorabilia, including old newspaper reports of a mysterious swamp monster. Elizabeths own adventure begins when she finds a perfectly egg-shaped stone in the local graveyard. Its brilliantly white, warm, and pulsing with energy and it feels like theres something inside. Encouraged by her eccentric great-aunt, Beth builds a nest for the egg stone. When the egg hatches, Elizabeths imagination guides her in a fantastical search for the runaway hatchling. Her investigations, abetted by her great-aunt, lead her to believe that the hatchling is the legendary Caradoc Swamp Monster. Elizabeths efforts to prove her deductions bring her into ever more fiery conflict with Eddie. What hatches is a zany adventure involving quick mud, skunk cabbage, swamp monsters, dragon dives, bonfires, fiery words and broiling tempers. Its a summer of dragons. The solution to both the mystery of the egg stone and the problem of sibling rivalry are satisfyingly reached in the humorous and imaginative conclusion of Summer Dragons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Mar 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781459715912

Holly Haggarty

Holly Haggarty was born in 1960 in Midland, Ontario. In a wonderful, magical moment, when she started grade one, she discovered she knew how to read. Finally she realized that storybooks were what she wanted to build her career around. So she became a mother, teacher, storyteller, writer. Holly Haggarty has published poems and articles in arts magazines and educational journals. Dream Dad was her first novel for children and was followed by Summer Dragons.

Reviews for Summer Dragons

[bcteagirl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Last Days in Africville is a young adult novel about a young girl 'Struggling with what it means to be the only black student in her calss in the mid 1960's Halifax'. What she does enjoy is the close-knit community in Africville just outside the city. The neighbours are all friendly and know each other, the church is important to them, etc. Suddenly the city wants the land to build a second bridge. Some are being offered money to move. Some want to move, while others do not. Many own the land and do not want to move somewhere where they will now be paying rent, and do not want to see their community torn apart. Others want to move to where city services are (water etc) and figure they had better move before they are forced out. Suddenly the church is bulldozed by movers in the middle of the night. Will Selina's family move?