In the time of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, a young orphan prepares for a difficult journey. Ping has grown to become a skilled Dragon Keeper, but her greatest challenge is yet to come. After rescuing the baby dragon, Kai, from the evil Emperor, she brings him to a safe haven near the border of the Empire. Now, as Kai grows into a restless young dragon, Ping faces a tough decision. She must find a way to take Kai to the ancient haven of the dragons. Following cryptic clues left by the wise dragon, Danzi, Ping and Kai set off on a long and dangerous journey filled with old friends and new enemies. But the biggest surprise awaits them at the end of their travels, when Ping quickly learns that the hardest part of being a Dragon Keeper may be realizing when it’s time to let go.
With this story of tender friendships and heroic adventure, Carole Wilkinson brings her epic trilogy about dragons in ancient China to a thrilling and satisfying end.
Carole was born in England in 1950. Her family moved to Australia when she was 12. She now lives in Melbourne, with her husband John. Carole didn't start writing until she was nearly 40. Before that, she worked as a laboratory assistant, working with a lot of blood and brains. Once she’d decided to try and become a writer, she went to university. She wrote a lot while she was there including her first novel. She showed it to a friend who worked in publishing who asked if she could write a teenage novel. Her first published book was based on something her daughter, who was at high school at the time, was doing.
Carole says she has lots of ideas and so far she’s never had 'writers' block'. She might have got a late start, but she’s been trying to make up for lost time and has written more than 30 books, some short stories, a telemovie and some TV and planetarium scripts.
I can't say I "really-liked" this one, how I wanted to, so badly yet it did not seem to live up to the same level as the previous books. I absoloutelty loved the previous books and I felt that the series was going somewhere exicting and I was hoping that the ending was going to be a little more - well (dare I say it?) dramatic than this. It's hard to explain but I felt the ending just didn't do the rest of the series justice as they were spectacular and I was recomending them to all my friends and family, just the ending left me, well sort of dissapointed I guess. But perhaps that isn't the end, I'd hope so, the writer certainly has talent and I love her work and I would be looking forward to reading any more books by her based around this time.
Read this if you have read the rest of the series, it certainly draws many plot points into a neat little bundle, yet I thought it was missing some of the previous "flair" that the other books contained.
Overall an interesting read, but not the best in the series.
5/5 He finalizado una trilogía tierna, llena de aventuras y con un final demasiado agridulce. Estos libros se han ganado un huequito muy especial en mi corazón, y ya son de mis libros favoritos.
A good end for the trilogy, even with the random (slightly forced) romance.
*ignore the massive reading break. The reading slump was due to mental health - didn’t have anything to do with the book itself.
I honestly think there were ways this could have been better, but I do feel this ending was one of the best in order to suite all the cast of characters rather than just Ping as the main character.
While there are other books Wilkinson has done in this same world to be part of a larger series, this is the last book that focuses on Ping specifically. So, besides the short prequel on Danzi, this will be the last of the Dragon Keeper series I will be reading. This isn’t something I would actively go out and buy for myself at a book store anymore. But that being said - I couldn’t say I wouldn’t read more of the series if it was gifted to me. I just wouldn’t go out of my way to get it myself as it’s not something I’m invested in now that it’s a different set of characters as the focus.
Soon after escaping neck deep in a situation, this one last sequel brings chills up and down the spine. Not only learning that the person who helped them escape from a life or death situation, their savior soon becomes the traitor and hands their butts to the one who was after them from the very beginning. With twists and turns of the story, it is only sad to know that not everything good in life lasts forever.
I thought this book was quite interesting. It captured the essence of adventure as well as perseverance. In most cases, if one were to put themselves in the shoes of the main character, they would most likely throw in the towel after the first event. This book taught me some things about taking on new challenges in life. I know before I read this book I would give up or not even try something outside of my comfort zone, but through the main character and words of her wise friend it motivated me to do something great in life. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs a little motivation and confidence.
As a fan of all things Chinese, but not necessarily mythological, this trilogy blew hot and cold for me.
The first book drew me into the adventures of Ping and her dragons Danzi and Kai, the second book did not seem to take the story much further however this, the final book, was thoroughly enjoyable.
I appreciated Carole Wilkinson's research and her dedication to setting the Han dynasty scene realistically. I was particularly interested in the interpretations of the clues to the dragon haven.
At times, I found her writing style a little too 'junior fiction' for me - the repetition of key points, the simple sentences and the references to peeing and pooing!!
I am looking forward to reading the pre-quel now - Dragon Dawn.
Response to Dragon moon, by Carole Wilkinson. This is by far the most sad and deeply and in sighting book I have read in a long time. The unusual aspect of this book was that the author made the story personal and very captivating to read.
What this book made me realise is that we are very fortunate and that knowingly and unknowingly we may be taking advantage of the things we say to be aspects of everyday life.In this the main protagonist has lost all of her enjoyments of life. this made me feel helpless of other people's situations.
I would strongly recommend everyone to read this book, it is extremely inviting to people who want a good read or just want another person's aspect on life.
I just loved this book and i want everyone to read it :) It is a third book in a trilogy so i reccomend u 2 read the first 2 books first. It is about a girl called Ping, and she lives in ancient china, han dynasty. Ping and the baby dragon are desperately trying to find the dragon Haven so that Pings dragon wont feel lonely anymore. Sounds pretty boring but youve got to read all 3 books ;D they are my favourites ..
Yeaahhh.. Selesai trilogy ini☺ Buku ke 3 tetap seru tapi Kai sudah tidak semenggemaskan di buku 2.. Kai sudah tumbuh menjadi naga remaja yang kadang agak mengesalkan (ternyata remaja dimana-mana sama saja ya mau manusia mau naga🤪) Sejujurnya konflik di buku ke 2 lebih seru tapi buku ke 3 ini menarik karena muncul banyak karakter naga2 baru yang turut memberikan warna dalam kisah Kai & aku cukup puas dengan endingnya😁
As much as I love the entire series of Ping’s journey, I was not expected to cry like an idiot at the end of this book! I know this is a children’s book and I read the first book when I was a child, but it was such a joy to finish the story off many years later. Maybe I have an attachment to it, but I swear anyone and everyone who loves Dragon stories should read this series.
This third and unbelievably awesome sequel to Dragon Keeper starts off with Ping and Kai temporarily lodging at Beibai palace, home to Princess Yangxin and her husband the Duke of Yan.
Determined not to become too lethargic Ping and Kai decide not to prolong their comfortable stay and leave, on their epic quest to find a safe place for Kai to live out his years in peace away from humans. With only cryptic clues left behind from Kai's father Long Danzi.
Liu Che, is invading Beibai palace because he knows that Ping and Kai are hiding there. Duke Yan makes a treaty with the northern barbarians known as the Xiong Nu and they team up and fight the imperial guards away.
So Ping and Kai leave on good terms with the Duke. Not very far down the road Kai spots something with his super awesome dragon vision. Turns out the Emperor Liu Che has been severely wounded in battle and left for dead.
Ping finds it in herself to help him and learns that Liu Che being left for dead has finally come to his senses and realises that the quest for immortality is a waste of time and resources. He offers Ping his heart, she however declines although she did love him once. She sends him to Beibai palace with the guards the Duke gave to escort her. Finally alone together Ping and Kai journey west along the Great Wall of China. They are then captured by some imperial guards. She is then kidnapped by the barbarians, although at the time she does not realise they are rescuing her.
She then renames the barbarians the Ma Ren (horse people) because she thinks they aren’t really barbarians after all. They give her a horse and tell her how to find a way back into the empire through a hole in the wall.
Ping and Kai get lost in a dust storm and end up entering the empire via a big gateway into a market place. Ping has an urge to follow some pretty lady to a jewellery stand and after conversation learns that she needs to go to a place called Tinkling Village.
Drama ensues in the market place, and then some stranger says that he is Pings master and she his slave and he’ll take care of it. It turns out the stranger is Jun and he has grown up completely unrecognisable as the weedy kid who was appointed imperial dragon keeper over Ping. So Ping and Kai accept Jun into their travelling party and head further west to find Tinkling Village.
Before they reach Tinkling Village they notice a white dragon circling above. Much excitement and hopes are now building that Kai may not be the last dragon after all.
When they reach Tinkling Village they pretend to be imperial officers wishing to purchase Jade Ornaments and Jewellery for the Emperor. They eventually find a very old man name Lao Longzi who was for a time Long Danzi’s dragon keeper. He had to retire though because he went partially deaf.
Lao Longzi travels with them to show them where the dragon haven is. He dies within in sight of the Serpents Tail.
At the serpents tail Ping and Kai must leave Jun behind, because it is not Jun’s destiny. They together climb this ridiculously terrifying cliff face behind a waterfall. At the top is the Dragon Haven Plateau. All they find here are piles of bones.
Just moments after arriving at their much awaited destination a Yellow dragon swoops down out of the sky and takes Kai away. Ping is devastated and in a half dead state trudges along follow the invisible thread that binds her to Kai.
Eventually in her half dead state a dragon swoops down and takes her to Kai.
They are now in the real Dragon Haven and it is filled with eight other dragons – Kai makes it nine, which happens to be an auspicious number.
While at the dragon haven the other dragons teach Kai how to be a wild dragon. He eventually challenges this rogue black dragon named Hei Lei to honour his father. He beats Hei Lei and after having the blood of his first battle it changes his scales from green to 5 colours. Kai is a five coloured dragon – he was born to lead the cluster.
Before winter they come to the conclusion that Ping must now leave the Dragon Haven. For she has completed her task, and really isn’t required anymore. She leaves on good terms with all the dragons.
She embarks on a solo adventure with no idea or purpose now. She ends up in a half dead state yet again, with barely the will to care because she feels she has no purpose. The black dragon Hei Lei who has made peace with his inner demons finally saves her and takes her to a hill closer to people and leaves her.
Ping doesn’t understand why this hill. Eventually she trudges on and into a village – she fortunately ‘bumps’ in to Jun again and they live happily ever after on his mulberry farm eating mulberries for all eternity.
This series was unbelievably well written, I’d even put it in my top 5 best series ever written which so far consists of Harry Potter.
Carole Wilkinson’s writing has so much depth, which literally takes you on Ping’s adventure across China in search of her own destiny.
I love it, it made me laugh, it made me cry – I’ll remember it for many years to come and if I have children I’ll read it to them.
Thank you Carole Wilkinson, for creating such powerful characters and such a wonderful adventure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I am so melancholic. When I tell you I teared up reading the end of this. Each time I finish a series that I read in my childhood I cannot help but feel an overwhelming sense of wonder and nostalgia and sadness and finality and this series was particularly significant to me because I still recall now how my dad took me to the local bookstore on my 9th birthday and asked me close my eyes as he goes up to the lady at the register and gets me this bag of books and Dragonkeeper was one of the first books I had ever held in my hand that was a gift from someone and that would be one of my first tastes of the transportive power of fiction. At this point I can't remember if I hastily consumed the rest of the series down promptly or if it took me years to finally conclude my reading but either way I'm here again and its jsut as bittersweet as the first.
I just wanna say. I love Ping. She is good and kind and caring and selfless and hardworking and has put everyone else in front of her for the entirety of her life. I didn't pick it up when I was younger, but now that the patriarchy and societal pressure has made its mark on me, seeing her be just a genuine, powerful, capable female character not because the author had to but just cause she is makes my heart swell. She either leaves all of her family or they leave her and she's come close to death, and has seen it, and those she loved been subjected to it but yet she is not afraid to love more, to let people in and form new relationships. Her maturation was something I greatly admired and there is a particular kind of satisfaction in seeing good people be loved and cared for. This is the kind of series that will stay me for as long as I live.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Carole Wilkinson's writing style feels somewhat stilted. Her sentences usually run pretty short and aren't very complex syntactically. This may be because she's writing for a younger target audience, but it couldn't be too young because she certainly isn't afraid to write about gore. While the sentences don't flow together very well, she knows how to convey ideas and emotions well. The nature of the writing made it hard for me to get into the story at first, but soon enough I was really into it. She has strong ideas that carry throughout the novel. The climax was brilliant, and I couldn't put the book down. "Dragon Moon" doesn't have quite as much action as its prequels. The only real battle happens at the end. I did feel kind of bored at the beginning of the book, even though Wilkinson wrote about Ping's journey well and in very good detail. I was also expecting it to be a simpler story, though I'm not entirely sure why. The plot we are given was surprisingly complex, and there were a great number of twists I didn't see. Something would happen, and I thought "Oh, that must be this!" I would gawk at this realization, and then something else would happen instead. It made me immensely happy. A very good conclusion to a very good trilogy. It left me wishing there were more. Oh well.
On the side, I wish the cover to this one felt more like the others. It just doesn't feel as... pleasing. I like the mist and detailed backgrounds of the other covers. But that's just me. (The scene on the cover, though, is a very good scene in the book.)
Although the story spent mostly on travelling in finding the unknown Dragon Haven, I was inspired and elated at the protagonist's tenacity as a Dragon Keeper. She was young and inexperienced, the odds were always on their way but she never gave up. She persevere in fulfilling her duty to her ward and sticking to her destiny though there were offers of comfort and security in the palace should she chose to stay.
I also liked the conference of Dragons when they reached the haven. Dragons. Wow. Ping was the last dragon keeper. After reading it, I was happy how it ended and I reckon it was an honor to read the story of the last dragon keeper.
The third book in the Dragonkeeper series. I continue to be impressed by the ability of the author to maintain the integrity of a Chinese Fable type story through each book of her series. In this story, Ping has to prove to wild dragons that she is the true dragon keeper. This takes her on a long and difficult journey to her destiny, but what her true destiny is will not be clear until the very end.
This whole story is just so well written and moving. I cried just as much reading this as a 22 year old as I did when I was 8, reading this for the first time. It's a flawless book from beginning to end. Ping and Kai are my favourite pair ever. And Ping is just a perfect main character. The way she is such a respectful, determined, unstoppable, quiet achiever is just the most moving thing in the world. So happy I reread this series! What a way to end the month.
This book is quite slow and every slip up or problem is solved quickly through the most obvious way. While there was one real plot twist, usually books aimed at younger readers still will be less predictable. An adorable and assumed conclusion for this series. The writing is as good as ever and having an entirely Asian cast of characters is a nice breath of fresh air from the oversaturated western library of stories.
This is really, really, really good. It was great, and it tied up a lot of knots. However, I thought the ending was... *bleep* It was horrible! It felt rushed, like the author wanted to end it as soon as possible, and the editor decided to just be lazy and not get her to write a better one. Later, I found out in the Acknowledgements that "there were some tight deadlines," so maybe that's why.
It's kind of sad saying goodbye to this wonderful character. I've learned a lot from Ping. But like her, one door closes and another one opens...life goes on. I suggest you find the "Lost Letter of Ping". It made me cry. It tied up loose ends before a new story begins. The story of Ping's descendant, the next dragon keeper..."Blood Brothers".
This book broke my heart as a kid - I loved it so much. I love Ping I love Kai and also I spent a lot of time thinking about the various pools that were featured in this book ... I hate when characters have to learn to let go!!
I know, I know. I labeled this book as action-adventure... so how could it also be on my the-insomniacs-list shelf?
Well, that's simple. This book wavers between action and then just boring filler things. One time you get an awesome action scene, and then after that you get heavy descriptions of Ping... walking. Travelling. Oh, yay. Am I supposed to throw a party over that? The action scenes aren't that great, too, to be perfectly honest with you. I thought I would never say that, but here I am, saying it.
I'm still trying to figure out how a book like Garden of the Purple Dragon, a book I rated 4 stars simply because of the ending, received a sequel like Dragon Moon that I rated 1 star, also causing the Dragon Keeper trilogy to deteriorate into a mess. Believe me, I would have probably rated Dragon Moon 2 stars if the ending was different, but the ending is not different, and it's just... ew. I could come up with thousands of nasty words to describe the ending. Hurried. Rushed. Disgusting. Confusing, and not in the good way. Uncertain. Always wavering, always changing, like the author's melding together different ideas that she has for endings. And trust me, that isn't good. It's like trying to weld together the Disney ending of The Little Mermaid and the original The Little Mermaid's ending that Hans Christian Andersen wrote.
I could say so many bad things about this book. It's just... so... annoying. But, believe it or not, I liked the set-up. Aka, the first 60 pages. After that, it goes crazy. I hate it. After the first 60 pages passes, I hate the book. If the book was as good as the set-up was, it would've been an easy 4 stars, maybe even a 5 stars if it was good enough. But noooo, of course not. The book is terrible after the set-up.
But first, let me address this issue.
In the Author's Note -- and yes, I read the Author's Note, even though I wanted to be removed from this blasphemy as soon as humanly possible -- Carole Wilkinson talks about the "Chinese" language, how difficult the "Chinese" language is, because the "Chinese" language has four tones and all the research she put into the "Chinese" language for this book, etc. Now, I'm not meaning this as a personal attack on the author. But if you want to sound so educated about China and its cultures, if you want to sound like you know a lot by talking about the four tones, then refer to Chinese as Mandarin! There is no such thing as a "Chinese language"; it is Mandarin. It's a mistake that people often make and it's driving me insane. Every time there's a Chinese character in a story, or a story contains some Chinese elements, they always mess this up somehow.
On the subject of Mandarin and Cantonese and the fact that people keep getting it wrong, I'm surprised in this book that Ping could speak with literally anybody she met. This whole trilogy, in fact. How come she never met somebody who spoke Cantonese, but magically, she kept meeting people who spoke Mandarin? Sure, Mandarin is popular, and almost everybody knows it now... but now is now, and back then is back then. I'm shocked this problem never occurred, actually.
But enough about the language. I guess I can excuse it, because the author doesn't have several accurate information sources that have hands-on experience at her disposal any second of her life (read: my family, more specifically my parents, who I can always ask about Chinese culture at any moment in my life), but what I can't excuse is the fact that the characters are annoying as hell. I see no character development. Ping, the main character, is just as dry as ever. She's devoted to dragons and won't leave Kai's side ever, but just as soon, she quickly abandons the dragons of her own free will, because she thinks she should. She's narrow-minded, not caring to review all of the options out there. As I mentioned in my review of Dragon Keeper, she only decides on one option and thinks, "Yes, that must be it!" Then that option is, surprise surprise, the one that's correct. Maybe it's her "second sight", but I'm not buying it. I'm more open-minded than her, and my mom has always said I'm picky and narrow-minded about everything.
Kai is said to have matured... but I see no sign of this whatsoever. He's still the most annoying dragon in literature that I have ever met in the record of annoying dragons, and I'm not taking any excuses for it. "He's not fully grown yet", everybody says, but he ought to have matured for SOME time, right??? I mean, it's been like, two years since Garden of the Purple Dragon. Shouldn't Kai have gotten some character development in-between? It doesn't help that my Chinese name is Kaiyao, which basically translates to "victory over want/need". Even though I share Kai's name, I'm not connected to him in the slightest.
In fact, instead of Kai maturing between a book, Jun's the one who got a growth spurt! Jun's been studying up on dragons, disguises, and the art of seduction since we last left him. He might have also grown a little bit... by a little bit, I mean a lot. He's my favorite character out of the bunch, but he's still as dry as sandpaper. He's just there to serve as a love interest for Ping (creating a semi-love triangle between Ping, Liu Che, and Jun??? It's an obscure love triangle, and a really stupid one), and also a friend. Yippee.
Then we have all the dragons that you can't really keep track of.
White dragons, red dragons, little green dragon of fluff. And the yellow ones! And the black one.
Finally, the biggest issue of this book. We got here quickly, only because I had to condense a bunch of the issues or else A) I would've run out of characters, B) I would've run out of time, C) I would've lost my train of thought, D) I would have lost the few cares I give to write a review for this abomination of a book, or E) all of the above!
Toward the ending of the book, attitudes shift. Too often to be true, actually. Too unrealistic. Relationships keep wavering and shifting, just to create drama, but this doesn't work, and it just seems even more unrealistic. Actually, this book suffers from what I'd like to call Tryhard Book Disorder (TBD). Symptoms of this include trying too hard to pull the rug out from under the audience that it loses all logic, making the characters seem so badass that they either don't seem badass or come off as Mary Sues, trying to make the action scenes exciting so much that they end up being incredibly predictable, or trying to raise the stakes so much that it seems like a whole other story. These symptoms make the book seem incredibly unrealistic, when it's intended to make the story exciting/amazing (but it's really not). This book has Symptoms A, a little bit of C, and then D. Throughout the book, Wilkinson tries too hard to create a surprise factor that it loses total sense. A previous enemy of Ping's, almost immediately showing remorse in such an extreme way as soon as Ping finds him? Yep, let's try to unrealistically patch up as many plots as we can! Guards of the Great Wall capturing Ping even though they were perfectly fine with her passing before? I guess so! Bandits swooping in to capture Ping even though they were helping her before, even though they look like rocks??? Sure, whatever! Then ? Seems legit! Somebody else -- who looks like a grown man, mind you -- trying to play Ping off as his "slave", then revealing himself as a close friend of Ping's who's around the same age as her, not even older than 18? Fine, take it!
Also, the action scenes are incredibly drawn out and really don't need to be drawn out so much. I can predict everything that's going to happen in the action scenes without needing to fully read them. People/dragons get wounded, the "good" people or the ones aiding the protagonist get healed or saved, it's so dramatic but ends up being anticlimactic, some other faction dives in to support anticlimactic ending. There, I just saved you the pain of reading pages upon pages of several of the battle scenes in this book.
And the stakes are trying to be raised so much that it comes off as unrealistic. Dragons were welcoming of Ping, even befriending her, then suddenly don't want her to be around anymore? Even though she helped cause something good for them? Huh? Ping losing her second sight as soon as she jumps off a dragon's back, riding away from a paradise for dragons? Even though she ends up in contact with another dragon soon enough? Conveniently coming to her friend's village, and conveniently (this is implied) falling in love with said friend even though it's never been shown before? It's like this plot wasn't even planned.
Do not read this book. Don't. It's not worth it.
NOTE: I'm sorry for the longest review that I've ever written, but I need to get the sour taste of this book out of my mouth.
EDIT: I just realized that this series has more books. No. Let's not go there, because I ain't reading those books anymore. Not after this disaster.
"Im Zeichen des Drachenmondes" ist der Abschluss der Trilogie um die Drachenhüterin Ping, die zuerst den alten Danzi und anschließend seinen Sohn Kai begleitet und versorgt hat. Wie schon die vorherigen beiden Bände hat mir auch dieses Buch recht gut gefallen. Die Protagonisten erleben einige spannende Abenteuer, die Geschichte ist wendungsreich und ich fand es interessant, endlich eine größere Anzahl von Drachen kennenzulernen. Es dauert natürlich eine Weile, bevor sie auftreten, da die Reise zu ihrem Zufluchtsort mühsam und mehr als beschwerlich ist, doch Ping ist fest entschlossen, ihren Schützling an diesen geheimnisvollen Ort zu bringen. Bei allem, was sie erlebt haben, wäre es sehr leicht gewesen, einfach aufzugeben, vor allem, da sie ein gutes, behagliches Leben am Hof eines Fürsten hätten führen können. Dennoch nimmt die Drachenhüterin alle Mühen auf sich, um das Beste für Kai zu tun und diese Beharrlichkeit war bewundernswert.
Wilkinson hat ihre Welt wieder sehr gut ausgearbeitet und die Handlung ist weitgehend fesselnd, doch neben spannenden Erlebnissen gibt es auch emotionale, berührende Momente, gerade, wenn es um die ungewöhnliche Freundschaft zwischen einem Menschen und einem Drachen geht. Es war schön zu sehen, wie die beiden füreinander da waren und die besondere Verbindung zwischen ihnen war durchgehend präsent, auch wenn ich fand, dass sie in der zweiten Hälfte des Buches ein wenig an Bedeutung zu verlieren schien, was den Umständen geschuldet ist. Die Entwicklung hat mir nicht unbedingt zugesagt, aber sie kam mir realistisch und sehr konsequent vor - was nichts daran ändert, dass mir ein anderes Ende besser gefallen hätte. Ich kann verstehen, wieso die Autorin diesen Abschluss gewählt hat und die Logik dahinter ist offensichtlich, doch vom emotionalen Standpunkt her fand ich die letzten Kapitel unbefriedigend und es gab eine Wendung, die für mich aus dem Nichts kam und deshalb etwas zu bequem wirkte. Zudem war es frustrierend, wie die anderen Drachen mit Ping umgegangen sind, selbst wenn man aus ihrer Perspektive nachvollziehen kann, wieso sie so handeln - als Leser hat man die Protagonistin über drei Bücher hinweg begleitet und weiß, dass sie es nicht verdient hat.
Aufgrund dieser Kritikpunkte bekommt "Im Zeichen des Drachenmondes" von mir 3,5 Sterne. Die erste Hälfte des Buches hat mir besser gefallen als die vorherigen Bände - sie war sehr fesselnd und interessant und ich mochte die Charakterentwicklung - doch die späteren Kapitel konnten mich nicht hundertprozentig überzeugen und ich bin mir auch noch nicht sicher, wie ich das Ende bewerten soll, das ich in vielerlei Hinsicht realistisch, aber trotzdem nicht wirklich zufriedenstellend fand.
I would just like to say that I truly enjoyed this series. I was disappointed when Carole changed the genre originally from YA in the Dragon Keeper to children’s book in the Garden of the Purple Dragon as well as Dragon Moon. The plot for this series was amazing and a really great read. When I returned the book to my library this past Friday as I was walking up to the book drop off I just thought about how much I already missed Ping, Kai, Danzi, and Hua. I kept dreading bringing the book back but with the due date approaching I knew I had to. When I popped the book in the drop off I had the feeling I didn’t want to let go. I am happy to think of the next reader who will go on the journey with Ping. I was thrilled with the fact Kai got to the Dragon Haven even though it does not have a name. I was so sad that Ping was not destined to live with the dragons, most of all Kai, for the rest of her life. She was destined to spend it with Jun. I don’t know what I would do if I were Ping. The fact she had to cope with never seeing Kai again would be so sad. What left me in tears was the fact that she got to hug Kai and then her sight was taken from her because of the dragon spit to conceal their haven’s location. The unknown consequence was that Ping could not watch her beloved Kai until he was a faint smudge in the distance as they flew away. Ping didn’t even know at that moment that it would be her last looking at Kai. That was devastating. I was overjoyed Kai gets to live amounts the last dragons. I hope that in some way Ping gets to see Hei Lei, (I believe that’s his name but my memory could be failing me) the black dragon, and maybe one day he will be the one to unite Kai and Ping 🐉
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Dragon Keeper Dragon Moon is about a girl named Ping and a Dragon named Kai who have to find a place for Kai to live so he's not hunted down by the emperor. In the beginning, the emperor gets mad at a city that has dragons that bring them good luck and fortune. He is upset because he wants that and so he demands that the dragon be brought to the palace. He has his army attack the city because they wouldn't send the dragon.
Kai and Ping are the main characters in this book. Kai is an imperial dragon and Ping is a Chinese girl. Ping tries to help Kai by waking him up from hibernation so he can escape. Throughout this book their friendship and loyalty to one another becomes stronger.
I liked this book. It has a good plot and there's never a dull scene. The author keeps throwing twists into every chapter. The book was a little difficult to read because it had some different words that we don't usually use that are not English. It was still a good book though.
Ping must leave the place where she has been living with her dragon Kai. It is under attack from Experian soldiers wanting to steal the dragoon. Ping must find the unknown dragon haven as outlined in a scroll given to her by Danzi Kai’s father. Ping and Kai head off on the perilous journey across a picket China looking for a place whose location is unknown. Slowly while walking across China Ping decodes the symbols, which have multiple meaning on Danzi’s map of China. Initially they are welcomed into homes in villages they come to as the people want the good luck brought by the dragon but as they get to more drought affected areas the dragon is vilified as failing to bring rain to their famine affected areas. They encounter more and more danger. How does Ping find the haven and what terrible lose does she encounter? I enjoyed the rich characters and the detail throughout the story. Recommended for readers ten years and older.
In the time of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, a young orphan prepares for a difficult journey. Ping has grown to become a skilled Dragon Keeper, but her greatest challenge is yet to come. After rescuing the baby dragon, Kai, from the evil Emperor, she brings him to a haven near the border of the Empire.
Now, as Kai grows into a restless young dragon, Ping faces a tough decision. She must find a way to take Kai to the ancient haven of the dragons. Following cryptic clues left by the wise dragon, Danzi, Ping and Kai set off on a long and dangerous journey filled with old friends and new enemies. But the biggest surprise awaits them at the end of their travels, when Ping quickly learns that the hardest part of being a Dragon Keeper may be knowing when it’s time to let go.
With this story of tender friendships and heroic adventure, Carole Wilkinson brings her epic trilogy about dragons in ancient China to a thrilling and satisfying end. (or does it?)
As a stand-alone book, Dragon Moon is good, but as the final book of Dragonkeeper series, it is not good enough. Dragon Moon is as attractive... but I had expected more.
The ending is perfect for all the characters, but it doesn't live up to my expectations.