Deborah Beale

There’s been more than a fair amount of dragon tales for children so when I picked up The Dragons of Ordinary Farm, I wasn’t expecting much. More dragons, more dragon riders, more cute kids….. But The Dragons of Ordinary Farm has a unique premise that sets it apart from the rest. It might have been titled The Creatures of Ordinary Farm.

Tyler & Lucinda are none too thrilled to be shipped off to their long lost uncle’s farm for the summer while their mother’s off concentrating on her show more dating life. But Ordinary Farm is no ordinary farm and the siblings soon realize their summer will be more than just baling hay and milking cows. It seems there be dragons, and lots of other fantastical creatures, crossing over into our world from a secret portal located on Ordinary Farm.

The Dragons of Ordinary Farm is an original story, dotted with interesting characters. The beginning chapters introduce a motley crew from distant parts of the world with odd stories that don’t quite seem to gel. The foreshadowing is abundant and pulls us along as we attempt to figure out what all the many characters might be. Young Colin is especially intriguing and sets up a possible romantic match for pre-teen Lucinda. However, the most perplexing character is Uncle Gideon himself. Is he crazy, mean or just a grief stricken widow?

Though The Dragons of Ordinary Farm is filled with interesting characters and an ending that really packs a wallop, I do have a couple tiny criticisms. The first few chapters work well, but once the kids get to Ordinary Farm, the set-up takes a bit too long. Rumor has it that this is a five part series so I’m thinking this might just be character/world building. However, considering the targeted age group, we need to get to the action faster (I guess I should have been an editor, because this sort of thing drives me mad). I feel simplistically compelled to also add that I like the UK cover sooooo much better. The US cover is really misleading (as was the title for that matter). If you get a student who begins to lag about a third of the way in, tell him it gets better really soon!

All in all, The Dragons of Ordinary Farm is a worthy addition for students interested in fantasy and/or action-adventure stories. The fantasy reader will be held rapt and the action-adventure reader will find lots to like too. The ending really packs a wallop and leaves enough room for a sequel or five.

Recommended for classroom libraries & school media centers serving students from 8-14 years of age.

Thank you to Harper Collins Children for my advanced copy.

The Dragons of Ordinary Farm arrives in the U.S. on June 2, 2009
Review first published on Reading Rumpus show less

From my review of Shadowmarch:

"The thing about Tad Williams is, he just keeps writing. The thing about me is, I'll just keep reading. When Williams is in his element, i.e. has an entire universe and centuries to work with, he can go pretty much anywhere and I'll follow."

The problem here is that Williams and Beale are constrained (largely) to one farm and one summer. The book is 75% set up and not much payoff. There may be other books in the series coming, but at the rate that Williams show more writes, your adolescent who loved this will have moved out. Maybe Deborah Beale is faster. show less

As much as I loved the concept of the book, as well as the characters and the mystery of Ordinary Farm, several things come to mind that I disliked. For one thing, I am firmly against curse words being used in books targeting children. For example, Uncle Gideon at one point says, “I don’t give a damn.” For a children’s book, such language is far from necessary, and will keep many parents from supporting the book, or purchasing it for their children. That is my main complaint. For my show more taste, there were too many allusions. Dialogue between the children was brimming with references to movies and books and songs, to an excess it seems. On the other hand, many of the allusions were to songs and games that do not exist. It seemed inconsistent for some allusions to be real and some not. My final complaint: too many questions, too many mysteries. It seems like the authors were trying to cram more than they could fit. Too many questions are brought up, and too many of them remain unanswered. I understand leaving a story open to a sequel, but this one had very little closure at all.(taken from Goodreads, agree with that) show less

I was reading this to my daughter... it’s slow going reading to her now, because she’d rather finish 1/2 of a novel on her own in an evening than listen to two chapters from me.

That said, this book, while never rejected outright, never captured her imagination either. I was into it enough that, when the third library renewal was almost up, I decided to just finish it myself.

There was one frantic-paced good part toward the end, but otherwise, I never really got all that into it.