DRAGON’S HEART

The Pit Dragon Trilogy (reissued 2004) becomes the Pit Dragon Chronicles with the appearance of a fourth volume that takes up the tale right where number three left off. Yolen sends teenage dragon tenders Jakkin and Akki back to their people after a yearlong ordeal, determined to hide their newfound physical and telepathic powers at first but ultimately to find ways to impart them to others. While the dragons display vivid personalities and agendas, the human cast comes across as pale and sketchy—particularly the two leads who, though supposedly in love and closely bonded by their shared experiences, show far more trust and understanding of their fire-breathing companions than of each other. Leaving Jakkin at a dragon nursery to fight off predatory drakks and subhuman Trogs while Akki departs abruptly for the city, where she’s kidnapped by an old nemesis, the author crafts a plot well supplied with danger and action, but readers who aren’t fresh from the earlier episodes will flounder, and even confirmed fans are likely to wish that the dragons had been onstage more often. (Science fiction. 12-15)