Dragon Skin by Karen Foxlee

One of Australia’s finest

Some books are great because of their complexity, their richness, their intricacy, but others can be great because of they are simple, or at least deceptively simple. Dragon Skin is one of these. Karen Foxlee is a very talented Australian author, one of a number of wonderful children’s writers from that continent. Sadly books published in Australia are difficult to get in the UK, but we are fortunate that Karen Foxlee’s children’s novels have also been published here Her first masterpiece for this age group, Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy, was brought out by Hot Key Books and the heart-rending Lenny’s Book of Everything (one of my Books of the Year 2019) is published by Pushkin Children’s, as is this, her latest. And Dragon Skin is another absolute gem of a book. 

Deep trauma with a light touch

For starters it gives a vivid and evocative picture of a mining town in outback Australia and of the life of a child growing up there. But Dragon Skin is far more than this. Bereavement, and the way a child deals with it, is a recurrent theme in Karen Foxlee’s books and it features again here. Ten year-old Pip has suddenly lost Mika, the boy who has been her very close friend for two years, and is struggling to cope without him. The often highly entertaining, and touching, story of their friendship is interleaved with the narrative of her most recent few days without him. But Pip has other huge problems too. Her mother is in an abusive relationship, as indeed, it appears, Mika’s mother has been too. The author uses the novel to explore how deeply children are affected by such abominable home situations. Yet even with these twin themes, Dragon Skin is not in the least maudlin or depressing. Karen Foxlee’s genius is to communicate trauma and deep emotion with a light touch. She treats Pip and her situation with profound sympathy, but also a good deal of humour, and captures her young voice perfectly. However, Karen Foxlee understand boys well too. Her conjuring of the overtly resilient, but inwardly vulnerable Mika is equally brilliant. It is just the behaviour of some men that appalls her - and quite right too. 

Simply huge 

All of this is told through the ‘fantasy’ of  rescuing and adopting a baby dragon,  a potentially clichéd idea, but which is here handled with masterly effectiveness. Despite dealing responsibly with some very real horrors, Dragon Skin is touchingly simple and simply very touching. It is also, ultimately, supportive and encouraging. It will be accessible for younger children from about 8 yrs, although this certainly does not imply that it should only be read by the young. It may be a short, simple book, but it is ‘Sky-huge. Galaxy-huge. Universe-huge,’ (p 318). 

Dragon Skin was one of my Books of the Year for 2021. Anyone who has missed it so far should not hesitate.

It has just deservedly won the prestigious Aurealis Best Children’s Fiction award in Australia.