BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSHanalei is eighteen, and she has not set foot on her home island of Tamarind in ten years. She survives as a traveling seadragon scholar, tracking wild pods across the Nominomi Sea and selling her drawings and notes to a research school on the island of Raka. When she spots a pregnant seadragon hiding in a remote grotto, she tries to warn the pod away from a waiting dragon hunting ship and is captured by Captain Bragadin, the same man who worked her as a child laborer for six brutal years after her father's death. Her escape from his ship leads her back to Tamarind, where she is stunned to find herself face to face with Samahtitamahenele, called Sam, the prince she grew up beside and never expected to see again. Sam has spent a decade buying up captive seadragons, hoping one might produce another of the rare eggs known as dragonfruit, the only thing that has ever come close to waking his mother from a ten year sleep. When a wild seadragon nearby turns out to be carrying eggs of her own, Hanalei and Sam set off together down the coast to find them before the hunters do.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Dragonfruit
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Dragonfruit. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a guide say a green seadragon ate an entire whale by itself?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Moa mentions it as village gossip, but Hanalei runs through the possible reasons for such a huge appetite. The third reason, the one she does not dare consider at first, is the clue that sets the whole story in motion.
- First half
In what book do keepers shove hundreds of pigs off a platform to feed seadragons?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Fifty captive seadragons live in a pool beneath the mountain, and after being fed pig they now refuse goat, chicken, octopus, and fish. Hanalei wakes to the squealing on her first morning home and feels guilty about the pork on her own tray.
- First half
In what book does a prince distract a charging seadragon by waving his cape overhead?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Hanalei begs Sam not to kill the dragon, so he shoves the machete into his belt and runs to draw it away from the crowd. He learns the hard way that this one has front legs and can chase him across dry sand.
- Second half
In what book does a royal captain kneel in the road and eat a dead baby dragon?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Penina tells Hanalei about Captain Erromondo, who was escorting three seadragon eggs when an earthquake overturned the carriage. He ignored the bleeding driver and fed on one of the dead hatchlings in front of the whole street, and people still sing songs about the Egg Eater.
- Second half
In what book does a seadragon raise its frill each time a girl lifts her arm?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Hanalei waves at the blue seadragon just past the shallows and it waves back, over and over, while the terrified party watches from the road. It is the first sign that this animal remembers her from Little Kalama, where she tried to warn it away.
- Near the end
In what book does a prince finally notice that a whole village has no children in it?
✓ Answer
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
Something has felt wrong to Sam since they arrived in Pago Maya, and it takes him until supper to work out that no babies or older children are eating alongside their elders. Captain Bragadin has taken all thirty of them hostage.
