Darwin’s Dragons
This is an attractive, charmingly illustrated novel that succeeds in blending fact and information with fantasy.
Everyone knows the story of Charles Darwin’s exploration of the Galapagos islands, their strange fauna, and the paradigm-shifting conclusions eventually drawn from them. In this book, the animals prove even stranger than those that still occupy the islands today. Ship’s boy and latterly Mr. Darwin’s assistant, Syms Covington, finds himself lost and shipwrecked on one of the smaller and still volcanic islands, and potential prey to an enormous dragon. His escape, and the smuggling to England of both a young dragon and a clutch of dragon eggs which he and Mr. Darwin must struggle to protect, form the basis of this pacey and intriguing narrative. A final twist set 25 years into the future ensures a heart-warming ending,
Life at sea on the Beagle, the boy’s survival of a volcanic eruption, and the final chapters set in Victorian Britain are all vividly recreated. The writing is simple but evocative and uses a few easy archaisms to give authenticity; for example, Syms ‘had been awful feared…’ that the sailors might ‘take violent’ to his pet lizard (or dragon, as he later discovers), and is relieved when they don’t. Descriptions are neat and short but effective: the air before a storm ‘smelt of copper pennies’ and an adult dragon is ‘bigger than four stage-coaches all squashed together’. The book’s humour will appeal to both children and adults—at one point Queen Victoria comes to the rescue, ‘boots and gaiters beneath her long skirts’, wading in a cave pool and tossing sardines to the young dragons.
I would heartily recommend this book for young readers of eight years old and upwards, and to younger children as a chapter book for bedtime reading.
