Michael Dexter
Robbinsdale Cooper High School
4235 Pineview Ln.
Plymouth, MN 55442
(763)383-1017
michael.dexter@attbi.com
'The Secret of Dragonhome' was one of my very favorite books. It is a fictional book that really caught your attention when you first started to read it. The book starts out with the lord of Dragonhome thinking about his son, then it takes a u-turn and goes to the main character, Melayne. Melayne and her young brother start out in a field where they get into talking about why they are not allowed to go into town. This is the part where you figure out that they are Talents. Talents are people who are born with a special ability, or power if you want to call it, because when they were babies and their brains were still developing, they drank water that had a dragon scale in it. In this book, they explain that dragon scales have chemicals in them that can change things in your body while it is still developing. Melayne has the "Talent" of communication, which allows her to speak with anything that is alive (this does not include trees). Sarrow, Melayne's younger brother, has the Talent of Persuasion, you don't find this out till very late near the end of the book. Sarrow's Talent allows him to persuade any human or Talent very easily into doing what he wants, this works better on "normals" (normal human beings without Talents) better than it works on Talents. Melayne and Sarrow, after talking go back to their homes to find that it was raided and their parents are dead. Melayne and Sarrow start to run to the town to warn the villigers about the raiders only to find that the raiders were already there. Melayne suggests that they use the books that they still had and try to get to their aunts house (which would take several weeks walking) for protection (at this point Melayne was more concerned about the protection of Sarrow because Sarrow was using his Talent on her without her knowing it). The raiders see them and start to chase after them, Melayne uses her Talent to see if she can find some animal to help them. (This is where you meet your first animal!) Two wolves come to their rescue killing the raiders, and Melayne and Sarrow are invited to come with them for shelter from the rain and raiders. Tane (one of the wolves who saved them) was the leader of a pack of wolves and in a way adopts them. He offers them a share of their food and says that they may cook it, (Melayne is a vegetarian because she would hate to eat something that she knew) and she eats some but leaves most of it for Sarrow so she won't have to eat too much meat. After Tane left and a few days later, they were walking of the path with a little wolf that followed them named Greyne, who becomes Melaynes first and truest friend. They are seen by a Seeker (a Talent who can detect other Talents by the way their brains are) and are braught to the King's House, a place where they prepare Talents for a war completely made to kill all Talents, but only the people who work for the king in high possitions. Melayne didn't like how they treated the Talents there so she and some other girls started a rebellion that destroyed the King's House and allows them to escape. The Talents found a place to stay, but then Greyne caught up with them and told Melayne that the administrator had sent a small army after along with a Seeker. Melayne and Sarrow are forced to go away to their enemy country, Farrowholme even though they are from Stormgard. They get to the border which they find out is a quarter mile long river. They cross over and when they get to the other side, they meet their first Farrowholme soldiers, and they trick them into thinking that they fell into the river and they saw some soldiers from Stormgard. They live with a family from Farrowholme for a couple days because they "saved" the people of Farrowholme. The family they live with had a girl Melayne's age named Y'sane, and a boy who has a crush on her named Falma. She is very tempted to stay, but they are forced to leave so that the family doesn't figure out about their Talents. They hear about a place where nobody ever goes because it is haunted, it has a crazy lord running it and it looks really scary. They decide that it is the perfect place for them to hide away, and the morning after they leave to go there. When they arrive they are told to go away because they don't accept visitors, Melayne tells the guard that they are there to get jobs, the guard lets them in and leads them to Lord Sander, the Lord of Dragonhome. They end up getting a job watching over Lord Sander's son, Corran. Corran is a severely depressed child who doesn't even know what the word "fun" means. Melayne decides to teach Corran to read. Corran tells Melayne that his father hates him because he killed his mom, he says that she died because he was born and now his father hates him. After a couple weeks pass, Lord Sander comes by to see how his son is doing, and he is doing so well he tells him to go tell the cook to make a dessert of his choice. He runs to the kitchen and while he is gone, Lord Sander learns that his son thinks that Lord sander hates him, he says it's not true and he thanks Melayne for her help with his son. A Seeker arrives at the gate, and Melayne learns that Corran is a Talent also, though even a Seeker would have trouble telling for sure if he is a Talent. They hide Corran and tell him that they too are Talents. Later, Lord Sander calls Melayne to his chambers and he suggests that maybe Sarrow could take Corrans place so that the Seeker would test him and he would not be a Talent. Melayne tells him that he Sarrow too, is a Talent, but then Melayne suggests that they invite some friends of hers (recall the family that they stayed with) because they have a little brother that could take Corran's place. Lord Sander says that he would have to go there and invite them himself. At about this point, even though they don't tell eachother, they both like eachother alot. While Lord Sander is out, Melayne sees a key that fell out of Lord Sander's pocket and picks it up, then realizes it is for the West Wing door. Melayne had been told specifically not to go into the West Wing, but she feels that she needs to find out the secret of Dragonhome (Notice: the title is in that sentence). She goes into the West Wing, goes down some hallways, and into a heavy door and finds five dragons. She talks to them and learns that they need fresh alive meat, not frozen dead meat like they've been getting from Lord Sander, and they need to get outside where there is light and heat. Lord Sander finds her in the West Wing and learns that Melayne has a Talent also. Melayne learns that Lord Sander has the Talent of sight, he can see into other people's future by touching them. He looks into Melayne's future to see if she will betray his secret or if she will keep it and sees that not only will she keep his secret, but they will also be married. Melayne is told by Lord Sander to call him Sander from now on, unless they are in public. They go up to Lord Sander's chambers and he tells her to tell him the whole truth, and she does, she even tells him that she is from the enemy country, and he doesn't care. Later on, Y'sane agrees to bring her lttle brother and they will go there, but they won't know that they are actually hiding a Talent. The Seeker comes and immediately realizes that it isn't Lord Sander's son because he got a detailed description before he left. Melayne comes out and then the Seeker realizes that there are more hidden Talents here and admits that the only reason they are bringing the talents to the King's House is to kill them all off. Y'sane hears this and comes out and punches the Seeker and tells him that he's a sick man. The Seeker leaves to go get his soldiers, and when they tell Lord Sander to surrender, Melayne takes them all out by telling their horses to buck. The Seeker threatens Melayne so Melayne releases the dragons. The dragons go immediately for the horses (who are going crazy seeing them) and while they are eating them, the Seeker tries to attack Melayne. Lord Sander dives to kill the Seeker, but Greyne is faster than him so he tries to kill the Seeker, but he is slower than the dragons, so one of the dragons dives for the Seeker and bites his head off, which he quickly spits out because he says that it is desgusting. The soldiers are glad to stay and be prisoners. Sarrow gets angry that Melayne is never paying any attention to him (so now he can't use his power on her) but he does have is power on the Overseer, so he and the Overseer leave to turn Melayne and the others in for protection from arrest (for being a Talent in hiding). Lord Sander goes to buy a ship from a friend in the village nearby. He gets back with barely enough time to get by the incoming army. When he gets back, he tells Melayne what's happening and she decides that the only way they are going to make it out of that place alive is by flying on the dragons. They decide that the place where they will go is the Far Islands, there have only been people who have made it there twice, both times on accident. They have the army come to the front gate. There are five people that will be going, Bantry, the soldier, who is in love with Y'sane, who is also going, Melayne, Lord Sander, and Corran. When they arrive at the ship, they sail away, and it ends with Lord Sander and Melayne talking about their upcoming marriage.
