Title No Such Thing as Dragons Series --- Author Philip Reeve Cover Art David Wyatt Publisher Scholastic - 2010 First Printing 2009 Category Middle Grade Warnings None Main Characters Ansel, Brock, Else Main Elements Dragons

Ansel is a mute boy whose master is a dragon slayer. Even though Ansel has never seen an actual dragon, Brock has the shining armour and the scars to prove his heroic stories. Ansel wants to be brave and learn all he can from his master, but he suspects there are no such things as dragons. The pair travels from town to twon, offering people protection in exchange for food and shelter. With no real dragons to fight, life is simple and quiet...until they reach the small village of Drachenberg, where the residents claim that a man-eating monster from Dragon Mountain is out to destroy them.

Reason tells Ansel that dragons aren't real and that Brock isn't who he says he is. Yet the boy knows deep down in his bones, without a shadow of a doubt, that the dragon not only exists, but that he himself was meant to come face-to-face with it.

Soaring and exhilarating at every turn, No Such Thing as Dragons will capture hearts, minds, and imagination.

An interesting twist on the dragon tale, where here we have the scam artist Brock, going around with a "dragon skull" to parade about after a "kill" to convince them of his prowess at dragon hunting. But he tells Ansel the truth, that dragons don't actually exist, he picked up the skull on his travels. He feels safe telling Ansel this secret as Ansel is mute and can tell no one the truth.

But then what is the truth? Just because you never saw a dragon doesn't mean they don't exist. Turns out they do, and they do eat villagers and their livestock, and when Brock is hired to kill it, he's up against something he doesn't know how to deal with.

One unexpected quirk is that it takes place in our world, so there will be names of places that are familiar, and of course we run into religion along the way and how that affects how people react to the dragon. And some people get eaten...

I read this book in a couple days, it went really quick and I didn't want to put it down, wondering what would happen next. Nothing was as they appeared, not Brock, not the dragon, so there were many surprises along the way. This was a worthy addition to the dragon books I've been reading all year, getting a feel for all the variations on the scaled beast along the way.