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DRAGON SKIN

Karen Foxlee

From the bestselling and multi-award-winning author of Lenny's Book of Everything comes a magical tale about a girl who saves a dragon and rescues her family.
How to save a dragon: 1) Assemble equipment. Water, Weet-Bix, sugar, syringe, sticky tape, scissors. 2) Believe in everything. Pip never wants to go home. She likes to sit at the waterhole at dusk and remember Mika, her best friend. At home her mother's not the same since her boyfriend moved in. They don't laugh anymore and Pip has to go to bed early, turn off her light and pretend she doesn't exist. When she finds a half-dead creature at the waterhole, everything changes. She knows she has to save this small dragon and return it to where it comes from. But how? A story about surviving and saving those you love, by the multi-award-winning author of Lenny's Book of Everything. Karen Foxlee is an Australian author who writes for both kids and young adults. She grew up in the Australian outback mining town of Mount Isa and still frequently dreams she is walking barefoot along the dry Leichhardt River. Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy, Karen's first novel for children, was published internationally to much acclaim while her second novel for younger readers, A Most Magical Girl, won the Readings Children's Fiction Prize in 2017 and was CBCA short-listed the same year. Her next book was the internationally successful, Lenny's Book of Everything, which has won multiple awards including the NSW Premier's Literary Award, the Indies Book Award, the Queensland Literary Award, was a CBCA Honour Book and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Karen lives in South East Queensland with her daughter and several animals, including two wicked parrots, who frequently eat parts of her laptop when she isn't looking. Her passions are her daughter, writing, day-dreaming, baking, running and swimming in the sea.
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Book

Published 2021-09-01 by Allen & Unwin

Comments

Karen Foxlee is skilled at writing brave yet vulnerable young characters who steal readers' hearts forever, and Dragon Skin is no different... a truly unique book and will especially appeal to readers who love adventures that are embedded with contemporary concerns. A magical tale that proves what you most need to survive is love.

UK: Pushkin Press (publ. 2021-10)

Dragon Skin is a book to make us believe in mysterious openings and infinite possibilities. It reminds us that love is what we need to save things.

I loved this story. It's a delicate, heartwarming tale of friendship, healing and hope.

In [Foxlee's] new middle-grade novel DRAGON SKIN (Allen & Unwin), 10-year-old Pip finds a baby dragon in the creek. What child would not long to discover a dragon? The idea is elating. Karen Foxlee transcends comparable plot geneses by her protagonist's desire, but disquiet about her capacity, to keep a baby dragon alive, particularly while fearful of discovery in a toxic household. The depth of emotion combined with an exquisitely rendered natural landscape, and resonant writing about both the real and the intangible is masterful.

Dragon Skin explores what it really means to love, to nurture and to let go. This book will make your heart burst with courage and hope.

I'm in love with this book. Dragon Skin is surprising, beautiful, unique. The characters are wonderfully drawn - tough but vulnerable, hurt but hopeful, damaged but strong. They've lodged themselves in my heart forever.

DRAGON SKIN by Karen Foxlee is Longlisted for the Australian Indie Book Awards Read more...