YOUNG ADULT REVIEW: The Dragons of Ordinary Farm - Tad Williams and Deborah Beale

BOOK BLURB:

Tyler and Lucinda have to spend summer vacation with their ancient uncle Gideon, a farmer. They think they’re in for six weeks of cows, sheep, horses, and pigs. But when they arrive in deserted Standard Valley, California, they discover that Ordinary Farm is, well, no ordinary farm.

The bellowing in the barn comes not from a cow but from a dragon. The thundering herd in the valley? Unicorns. Uncle Gideon’s sprawling farmhouse never looks the same twice. Plus, there’s a flying monkey, a demon squirrel, and a barnload of unlikely farmhands with strange accents and even stranger powers.

At first, the whole place seems like a crazy adventure. But when darker secrets begin to surface and Uncle Gideon and his fabulous creatures are threatened, Lucinda and Tyler have to pull together to take action. Will two ordinary kids be able to save the dragons, the farm — and themselves?


REVIEW:

As a fan of Tad Williams I was interested to see how his work would translate to the childrens market. Would he be an ideal author to bring his brand of fantasy or would he sadly fizzle out by trying to keep an idea simplistic enough for the YA market to follow without his usual brand of witty if not quirky twists?

What lets the book down in my opinion is that there’s not enough of a treat on the hook to bait the reader in, it starts slow and drizzles factoids out here and there relying on the readers requirements to see the dragons in all their firey glory, which, to be honest, is a shame as the one thing that the authors don’t seem to take into account is the attention span of their target audience who in a generation of quick fixes and instant options expect action on demand. Which, I have to admit is a great shame as when it finally does pick up the pace from its slow, meandering start it really does start moving places at break neck speed leaving the reader on tenderhooks with the cliffhanger a the tales end. What perhaps may come as a bit of a shock is that its currently set for five volumes that should cover the protagonists school holiday time at the farm which leads the reader to wonder what other dark and dangerous paths are these two “farmers in training” expected to face?