Dragon Cauldron

Dragon #3

by Laurence Yep

Monkey tells the tale as he joins the dragon princess, Shimmer, and, along with two feisty humans, they embark on a mission to recover the dragon homeland. It has been Shimmer's personal quest for years, ever since Witch Civet stole the sea, and the dragons were evicted from their magnificent palaces of coral and pearl. Now the arch-enemy Civet is repentant, and she too has thrown in her lot with this fearless band.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Middle Grade, Speculative Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.

Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Monkey was probably my least favorite character in the previous books, so imagine my disappointment upon learning that he is the narrator throughout this one.

The plot starts off slow, but picks up in the final third with a horrible creature more befitting the adult body horror genre than a children's book. Whether the Nameless One (once he finally makes his appearance) is more scary or silly is perhaps a coin toss, but I found him just the right amount of disturbing.

The plot feels a bit disconnected, like a series of events rather than a cohesive story, almost episodic in nature, which might be fine if you're reading only one chapter per day and ending on a cliffhanger.

Not a fan of Civet dying, particularly after what looked like a promising set up for a redemption arc. Is this what Yep decided qualified as redemption? Burning alive? And apparently burning characters alive is a theme in this book because Thorn, a child, also decides to burn himself alive to advance their quest. I'm not a fan in general of suicide portrayed as noble, but especially not when it's a child's suicide. This of course being a fantasy book, whether Thorn is ACTUALLY dead is debatable, but he certainly thought he was going to die and he did in fact burn, so that's enough of a gross-out for me.

Overall, I think it's worth the read for the Nameless One alone, but honestly I'm sensing a steady decrease in quality in this series.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. I liked it best of all in the series. There was some character development, which is always good. Thorn grew a good bit as a character, and that made me really happy, since I liked him the best. The other character's weren't all that bad, but I wish that there would have been more prospective from his point of view.

[Bogart Rioles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first fantasy book that I have finished. Actually I couldn’t recall much of it but the excitement I felt while reading this was very much familiar as of this day ❤️❤️❤️

[branewurms · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually liked this book a lot more than the first two. For one thing, this book was full of some surprisingly triptastic and eerie imagery, and I am ever-predictable in my love of all things odd. For another, I really liked Monkey's narration - while I find switching narrators a bit of an odd choice for the author to have made, Monkey's narration seemed more fun and sophisticated than Shimmer's. (Although I am sure her face would explode in flames if anyone were to ever tell her that. I suppose we can at least see why Yep paired these particular narrators - their heads vie for 1st place in inflated size.)

On the other hand, I think a piece of my childhood will seriously curl up and die if Thorn isn't restored in the next book.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow great tale with interesting plot twists - good character development, too, of lead characters from the first book, with the new additions from the second. I have to go back and read book two now, because we didn't have it before. It's hard to wait to read book 4, but I'm sure it will be better to have read all three before taking on that one. Thorn is such a sweetie, and Shimmer is a stitch, Ms. Princess and all - she reminds me of our cat. Monkey is turning into quite a responsible character, if still somewhat mischievious!

[Greg Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. I read the first book of the series "Dragon of the Lost Sea" thirty some odd years ago and loved it. It was not until recently that I discovered the other three books in the series. This is the third book book. I enjoyed it but this book is different. Instead of being told by Shimmer the dragon it is told by Monkey. It took me awhile to get used to that, but I enjoyed the book overall.

[Skedatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is perhaps my favorite of the series. Shimmer accepts the responsibility of being a leader instead of just taking care of herself. Indigo is a counterpoint to this, in essence reminding us just what kind of person Shimmer was, while Thorn is just as loyal as ever (despite getting his feelings seriously hurt by Shimmer). Really loved the character interactions.

[Ian Nafiri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this one as a youth and loved it. Even now, the imagery of the witch who captured the sea in a tiny pebble has stuck with me. I haven't revisited it since then, but maybe some day I'll go back to it. Even with only vague recollections, however, I highly recommend this book.

[Quent Pembrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor, poor Thorn ... no spoilers, mind you.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

i learn learn abuot friendship and love. in the book you learn how friends sacrifice their lives for one another

[Jiret]

book on hand