Critique: The Fire Within (Chris D’Lacey)

David becomes Liz’s lodger at Wayward Crescent. She makes pottery dragons and her daughter Lucy is obsessed with squirrels (particularly Conker). This is the backdrop to the story of David settling and figuring things out. He has a love-hate relationship with Lucy and their cat Bonnington. Liz creates the pad-and-pencil-carrying dragon Gadzooks for David who ‘helps’ him write.

 

*****SPOILERS (for entire series)*****

 

There’s something weird going on with the pottery dragons. Liz cuts Lucy off whenever Lucy explains something about the dragons. Like why they’re hot or why they’re special.

David jokes that the flapping in Dragons’ Den is from dragon wings. There isn’t a kiln in Dragons’ Den, so how does Liz make the pottery dragons? David hears ‘hurring’ in the night. Liz says it’s the central heating but there are no radiators in the house.

The story David writes about Conker with Gadzooks’ help happens in real time. When David annoys Gruffen, the dragon’s eyes go violet and David ends up with a neck singe.

So the dragons are clearly more than just pottery. Indeed, when the dragon in David room is described, it includes a suggestion of personality and a sense of place in the world. When I first read this book, this description annoyed me (‘Come off it’ was my response) but when combined with the rest of the clues the book gives, it makes sense and creates clarity.

 

A lot of the humour in this book was great for me as a child and as an adult. Such as a squirrel-book author being called ‘A N Utter’.

David’s interactions with others is a great source of funny moments. David turns the bathroom dragon around before he unzips himself. Bonnington starts eating David’s food so the human puts it in the cat’s bowl but Bonnington sniffs then rejects it. Then David bangs his head on the library desk because Henry Bacon (their neighbour who works there) frustrates him.

Sophie, an animal volunteer, is the pre-requisite to humour. Liz gives David the phone from Sophie (an animal volunteer) instead of Lucy ‘Because you’re not a handsome young man’ and Lucy replies, ‘Well, neither is he!’ Later, Liz prepares a lot of food for Sophie so David plans to invite Sophie over a lot more.

Lucy threatens to run away and Liz offers to help Lucy pack.

 

Plenty of positives!

The chapters are the right size for the intended audience.

They bury Conker the squirrel ‘like a nut’. Such a clever, beautiful description.

There are parts that could be removed yet not impact the plot of this novel whatsoever. However, it’s absolutely vital information for the rest of the series. I like that it’s introduced before it’s needed. David’s told never to let a dragon cry, otherwise the tears will put their spark out. It’s as easy as not loving them. Also, David hears a story of how Gwilanna made Guinevere save the dragon Gawain by catching his fire tear. David assumes Liz and Lucy are descendants of Guinevere. This bloodline is important.

 

All mistakes present should have been picked up by the editors. I don’t know why they weren’t.

A very long paragraph describes the dragon in David’s room and this is not the right size for the intended audience.

Lucy loves squirrels and Liz says to David he’d wish, ‘Noah never let them on the arc.’ Should be ‘Arc’.

Chapter titles aren’t in majuscules (which they should be) other than ‘The Wishing Fountain’. There’s no grammatical reason why this gets majuscules when the others don’t.

The first paragraph of ‘The Wishing Fountain’ is longer than a page. This is bad writing, especially as the intended audience is children.

David runs his hand through his ‘mop of hair’. Earlier, Liz’s hair was described in the exact same manner. My first instinct is to call out on the lazy writing. However, it could be foreshadowing their mother-son bond as discovered later in the series. Seeing as the author wrote organically (i.e. no plan), I doubt this would be the case.

David thinks Liz and Lucy are of Guinevere bloodline. That’s a big leap, connecting a myth and potentially fake people with your host family. Much more information would be needed for David to suspect it, to even recognise it as a possibility, before making a decision.

 

Overall this was lovely story that works really well as a children’s novel. It’s a gentle stepping stone into the rest of the story, taking the readers into a world of magic. Whilst the plot is vague here, it thickens up in the following books.