'Tyra's really happy to move in with her nan. But starting at a new school can be tricky, and Tyra is worried about fitting in. Then Nan surprises Tyra with a beautiful china snow dragon, and Tyra has an idea. She'll take the dragon into school. The other children will love it - and maybe it'll make them like Tyra too! But disaster strikes and the beautiful dragon is smashed. Can Tyra find a way to repair Nan's special present and make some new friends along the way?'
The Broken Dragon tells the story of Tyra, a young girl who's recently had to move in with her nan, though for an undisclosed reason. She and her nan get along really well, and even though her nan isn't able to afford everything, and the two of them often go round the charity shops together, she always treats Tyra as much as she can, and the two of them have a happy life together. However, things are set to change as the new school year is starting, and Tyra has to go to her new school for the first time.
On her first day Tyra turns up in one of her favourite dragon shirts, a rainbow beanie, and bright tie-dye shorts. She loves to dress bright and fun, and is clearly an outgoing and boystrous person. But some of her new classmates are unsure of how to act around her, and she begins to feel lonely. When one of the mothers invites Tyra and her nan to come to a birthday picnic with the rest of the class Tyra learns that one of the other girls, Yasmeen, likes dragons too. So the next day Tyra decides to take her new, very delicate dragon statue into school to try and bond; but as the title suggests, this isn't set to go well.
One of the things that I really liked about The Broken Dragon is that the book makes it very clear that it's okay to be different, what some folks might even say is 'weird', without actually saying it. At first Tyra doesn't fit in with the other children, she dresses wilder than them, she's very loud and gets excited easily, and she isn't afraid to show the world her love of dragons. She's a very free-spirited girl, and one who isn't ashamed of who she is. With so many children being told that they need to fit in, told how to act, told how to conform, it's a wonderful breath of fresh air to have a book where the lead doesn't have to change or act differently in order to make friends of become popular. She just has to be herself.
It's not stated in the book, but there seems to be a reason for Tyra coming to live with her nan that she doesn't want to speak about, and it did make me think that it was indicating some kind of personal tragedy in her past; possibly losing her parents. Whilst the book doesn't go into this there's enough hints that it shows kids that non-traditional home lives, and guardians who aren't your parents are perfectly fine and valid. As long as you have a guardian who loves you, cares for you, and treats you well it doesn't matter who you live with.
I also got the impression from the book that Tyra might even be autistic, thanks to the way she acts in social situations, her hyper fixation on dragons, and the fact that a lot of her dialogue is in bold because she tends to be quite loud and excited when talking. Again, this is something that the book doesn't directly address, and I think that's a really good thing. Neurodivergent readers will be able to look at Tyra and might see some connections with her, and neurotypical readers can read it a come away seeing her as just a bit of an excitable kid. It enables all kinds of readers to be able to see different things in Tyra, to connect with her in different ways, and to feel included without having to make clearly defined labels or boxes in order to do so.
There's a lot of positive message in The Broken Dragon, and I think that young readers will come away from the book with some decent impressions about being yourself, about making friends, and how just because something is broken it doesn't mean it's ruined forever.
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