Dragon Rider
When the humans are approaching, the last dragons have to flee. Young silver dragon Firedrake and his 'dragon riders' Ben and Sorrel take wing into a great adventure: the quest to find the Rim of Heaven.
Dragon Rider is about a dragon (duh!). Young dragon Firedrake embarks upon a quest to find the Rim of Heaven, the mythical home of all dragons. He is accompanied by the brownie girl Sorrel and the human boy Ben. It turns out to be quite a dangerous journey during which they meet terrible foes like Nettlebrand, the Golden One, but also make new friends, like Professor Greenbloom and his family. But Cornelia won't give away any more . . .
- First published 2004
- Reading age Age 8
- Illustrated by Laura Ellen Anderson and Cornelia Funke
- Publisher Chicken House
- Available at IndieBound.org
- Also available as Audio Book
The dragon spread his shimmering wings and took off. Holding his breath, Ben clung tight to the spines of Firedrake's crest. The dragon rose higher and higher. They left the noise of the city behind. Night enfolded them in darkness and silence, and soon the world of men was no more than a glitter of lights far below.
'Well, how do you like it?' Sorrel called to Ben when they had been flying for some time. 'Do you feel sick?' 'Sick?' Ben looked down to where roads wound through the darkness like gleaming snail trails. 'It's wonderful! It's — oh, I can't describe it!' 'Personally I always feel sick to start with,' said Sorrel. 'The only thing that helps is eating. Take a look in my backpack and hand me a mushroom, will you? One of the little black ones.' Ben did as she asked. Then he looked down again. The wind was roaring in his ears. 'Wonderful!' said Sorrel, smacking her lips. 'A following wind. This way we'll be in the mountains before daybreak. Firedrake!' The dragon turned his head to her. 'Time to turn east!'
Everyone who knew my first dog, Rico, will know that Firedrake looks a little like him. But Rico also couldn't fly. I wrote Dragon Rider because flying on a dragon was the one thing in life I really wanted to do and I knew that writing about it was the closest I would probably come to the actually experiencing it. So I simply imagined it – something I have always been rather good at.
Besides, the book goes back to some ideas I used for my very first book "Die grosse Drachensuche". Someone wanted to make a series out of it and asked me to make the story a little longer. Well, you can't just make a story longer and so I decided to write it anew and in a slightly different way. While I wrote that new story I didn't feel like turning it into a TV series anymore and so now there's just the book.
After Dragon Rider I kept coming up with ideas for thicker and thicker books. And I learnt that longer stories quickly gain a life of their own.
And there was one more reason to write Dragon Rider. I wanted to draw dragons and all the strange creatures that live with them. I can still smell all those mushrooms brought by children who knew how much Sorrel likes to eat them. And then there is Twigleg, the manikin. Of all the creatures I invented he is still one of my favourites. And I had so much fun drawing the sea serpent.
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