Also by this author: The Promise, The Drummer Boy, Sinner, Green, The Dream Traveler's Quest, Into the Book of Light, The Curse of Shadownman, The Garden and the Serpent, The Final Judgment, Millie Maven and the Bronze Medallion, Nine, Millie Maven and the Golden Vial, Millie Maven and the White Sword, Millie Maven, And They Found Dragons, The Blue Boy and the Red Princess, The Light of the One, The Dragon Rider Who Saved the World, The Unknown Path
Series: The Dragons Among Us #6
Published by B & H Publishing, B Books on October 1, 2022
Genres: Children's, Fiction, Fantasy
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In the epic showdown, Noah’s people, the children of Zion, find themselves trapped between two warring tribes of dragon worshipers, both set on the destruction of the city of light, Zion. Although still only a boy, the fate of his family and his people rests firmly on Noah’s shoulders. He must step out of his father’s shadows and overcome the darkness by slaying the king of dragons as the tribes plunge into battle. But slaying the dragon king requires Noah to be in the light, and that light seems nowhere to be found.
Children of Zion brings The Dragons Among Us to a resounding conclusion. New Alchemy, the Scalers, and those of Zion are all ready to march to battle. Fear reigns just as the dragons want. Even in Zion, even Jack Solomon, is prepared to give in to fear and violence in a desperate hope that it can save his daughter. This book is a fast-paced single-track novel that hurtles relentlessly toward a conclusion. Will the dragons of fear prevail or will they once again be banished by a light-bringer?
The answer is obvious. There’s no real drama or uncertainty about that. So I appreciate that the Dekkers do find a way of adding in some layers of depth and surprise—which I’ll leave as a surprise. Suffice it to say that although the book is, in many ways, predictable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a novel aimed toward young children.
My main criticism of the conclusion—and it has been the criticism of the conclusion of And They Found Dragons and The Dragon Rider that Saved the World—is that because of how the Red Dragons function as manifestations of fear, the climax is always that everyone becomes convinced to not be afraid and the dragons disappear. It’s really anticlimactic. Theologically, I’m all for “make converts not casualties,” but the way in which this happens (every. single. time.) is just so easy and so sudden that you might as well just scrawl “AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT TRILOGY” across the page. It’s an inherent anticlimax that the Dekkers just keep repeating.
I’m reading this series for review in reverse order (having read them in publication order as they came out), so I’m going from The Dragon Rider (2024) to Dragons Among Us (2022) to And They Found Dragons (2021) and it’s made it clear how these three trilogies are all the same core story and theme with slightly different beats. And I can see how, for me at least, it’s a journey of diminishing returns. Rather than get better at the story, the Dekkers instead get more didactic, simplistic, and vague as they go on. Dragons Among Us sits in the middle, treading old ground but in a way that’s still enjoyable.
P.S. – One practical thing of note is that while this series has a different name from its predecessor, it retains a sequential numbering from it. So while Children of Zion is the third The Dragons Among Us book, the spine and all data regarding this book list it as Book 6. The trilogy as a whole is listed as Books 4-6.