Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Grades 7-9)

Patricia Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons was my Spring Awakening, let me correct myself - my Summer awakening. At the time I was reading her book, in the Summer of Grade 9, I was in Canada for three years. My Summer goal that year was to read more books. My classmates were probably reading A Wrinkle in Time, The Book Theif or maybe Hunger Games. None of those books were yet accessible to me. (I did end up reading them a bit later though, never too late to pick up a book) Patricia Wredes instantly transported me to a hilarious world of a proud princess and clever dragons. I worked my way through the words tirelessly and stubbornly trying to decipher the story behind the words. It took me until the end of the book, without looking the word up, to figure out what “knod” meant. I fell in love with the story.
Learning about Particia for our writing entry has been equally illuminating. She describes herself as an avid reader from the first, talking about her three sisters and a brother she says. “I grew up surrounded by books (pretty much literally–we had bookshelves on nearly every flat wall in the house, and there were books in the back of the linen cupboard, books in the bathroom storage shelves behind the cleaning supplies and towels, and books in all the closets.)” Her love for reading turned into casual writing, serious writing, creation of an “Interstate Writers’ Workshop, aka the Scribblies” and a prolific career as an author. She is still following her passion, writing and publishing her enchanting adventures to this day.