The Great Texas Dragon Race (2023)

By Kacy Ritter

4Rbooks                                         5/6                 grades          6-8

Amazon                                          4.9/5              grade level   3-7

Goodreads                                      4.34/5          

Common Sense Media               Not Yet Reviewed

388 pages

Synopsis

            Cassidy Drake is 13 and works on her family’s dragon ranch. She trains them, takes care of them, and loves them, especially her favorite dragon, Ranga. Unfortunately, her family ranch has fallen on hard times and may have to be sold. The one thing that could save them is if Cassidy could enter The Great Texas Dragon Race and earn the top prize. This becomes even more important when her grandmother becomes ill and is hospitalized.

            Her father is against her participation and won’t sign the permission slip. Cassidy’s mother was a winner of the race many years ago but has passed from a poisonous snake bite.  Her dad doesn’t want to lose Cassidy too and the race is considered extremely dangerous. Cassidy gets her grandmother to sign the permission slip and sneaks away to the race.

            Cassidy dragon Ranga is fast, but smaller and skittish. She must utilize her strengths while keeping her confident and courageous. The FireCorp riders are out to stop her, and the independent riders are reluctant, at first, to team together. The challenges along the way are difficult and potentially deadly. She must use all of her talents, wits, and Texas knowledge to come in first.

Parental Guidelines:    medium-high 

The dragon race is very dangerous.  Each of the stations along the way requires a task to be completed.  The tasks grow more dangers and deadly each time.

There are numerous stories of riders dying in previous races and a number of riders in this race are injured, one severely.

Cassidy uses her grandmother to enter the race against her father’s wishes.

The FireCorp riders go out of their way to stop the other riders, including using the dragons to harm them.

The FireCorp riders use illegal steroids on their dragons to make them more fierce and dangerous.

FireCorp mistreats their dragons and hurts them.

Recommendation

This turned out to be a much better book than I thought it was going to be when I started it. A slow start grew into a consistent thriller with a very satisfying ending.

It’s an interesting play on a common theme.  Underdog horse, or dog, trainer who needs to win the big race to earn the prize money which will keep their ranch or farm going.  Think National Velvet or Stone Fox.  The difference here is that the ranch animals are dragons, flying, fire-breathing, big claws dragons.

The author has done a good job creating modern fantasy.  The locale is modern day Texas with all the modern electronics, conveniences, and media. The animals are a wide variety of dragons with different physiques, attributes, and temperaments.  They are trained and turned into pets, work animals, or race animals. Ms. Ritter has done an excellent job making the fantasy believable.

Because of the length and dangerous subject matter this is a middle school novel.  There was a sticker on it giving it kudos for representation. The main characters include Caucasians, a Latina, Asian Indians, equal amounts of girls and boys, and a gay cowboy (mentioned once and never a part of the story again).

I liked it, and it kept me interested through the end. There are good moral lessons along the way about friendship, fighting evil, and working together as a team. This is another book I purchased at Fabled, the wonderful independent book store in Waco, Texas.