Beware! It's Friday the 13th #13 (Dragon Slayers' Academy) [Paperback]

Kate McMullan (Author), Bill Basso (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 7 and up | Grade Level: 2 and up | Series: Dragon Slayers' Academy

Things couldn't be better for the greedy headmaster of DSA. Lasses are lining up to enroll in his school, and more students means more gold! But when The Medieval Times headline announces that the Bad Luck Dragon is on its way to DSA, Mordred orders his students to hunt for every good luck charm ever invented. But can a bunch of phony 4-leaf clovers help Wiglaf and his friends defeat the dragon Snagglefahng?...or will their luck run out?

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap (January 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0448435314
• ISBN-13: 978-0448435312
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kate McMullan is the author of many books for young readers, including I Stink!, winner of a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor; I'm Mighty; and Meg's Prairie Diary, a historical fiction trilogy set in St. Louis and Kansas in 1856. She has been fascinated by the Lewis and Clark Expedition since the age of ten, when an uncle told her about an ancestor who had gone on the expedition. That ancestor was sixteen-year-old George Shannon. Ms. McMullan lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York, with her husband and collaborator, noted illustrator Jim McMullan, their daughter, two cats, and a dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A teen's review..., February 4, 2009

By 

Rachel Carpenter "A Young Writer's Opinion" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beware! It's Friday the 13th #13 (Dragon Slayers' Academy) (Paperback)

My mom checked this book out at the library and asked me to read it to see if it would be a good fantasy book for my younger brother and sister. I would definately say it's a good story for kids aged seven to ten.

The book begins with a group of kids preparing for the princess lasses coming to join DSA (Dragon Slayer's Academy). The kids, mostly lads with the exception of a few commoner lasses, are very excited.

Throughout the book you are introduced to the main characters though are not given a lot of information on their backgrounds. However, knowing this is a children's book, I really didn't expect that.

Something that might concern the parents, or at least concerned me a little, was how the book portrayed the adults to be cowardly idiots. When it was time to fight an actual dragon, the adults, with the exception of Brother Dave, ran into the school and hid while the children faced the dragon. The headmaster, Mordred, was a greedy fellow and was consumed with a fear of Friday the 13th (where I assume the book gets its title). The fear caused him to act irrationally by making the kids wear such things as lucky bonnets and eels wrapped around their necks for good luck.
Mordred's sister, Lobelia, forces the girl's to wear an ugly dress that she believes to be "fabulous"

While I would say this is an overall good book for younger kids to read, I would not recomend it to any parents whose child might be thinking they're smarter than the adults in their lives.