The Boy With The Sword

Al has returned home to a swirling chaos of shifting alliances and hidden motives. His family is acting strangely, and his friends and acquaintances are revealing themselves to not be the people he thought they were.

1. How do you define family?
2. Can we find friends among those who disagree with us? Should we? How do we know when a disagreement is important enough to end a friendship?
3. How far would you go to protect the ones you love? Would you push them away? Would you understand if they did that to you?

Dragon Run

Al lives in a world where dragons assign each mortal a number to determine his or her worth. Instead of rebelling against these ranks, people accept them. They judge and treat each other based on their ranks.

Whether you're teaching history, language arts, or social studies, there are plenty of ideas just in that quick world description for your class to chew on. Here are three:

1. What if people could be judged and labelled effectively? Would that be a good thing?
2. What if people could be bred to be perfect? Would that be a good idea? Has anyone ever tried it in real life?
3. Do you see any ranking going on in today’s world? Are some people treated differently than others? Should they be?

Reading Level

Scholastic has their own way of calculating reading level. According to them, Dragon Run appeals to 4th through 6th graders, and its reading level is grade 5. The Scholastic web site lists Dragon Run as being for ages 8 - 12. I’ll tell you a secret, though: a much wider range of ages (including adults) are enjoying this book!