The Dragon Thief, by Zetta Elliott

In Dragons in a Bag (link to my review), Zetta Elliott introduced a  young boy named Jaxon, who was given a job to do by a magical old woman, Ma.  He had to return three baby dragons to the world of magic.  It didn't go as planned, not that Jaxon knew enough about what was going on to really "plan" anything, but he did his best.  It wasn't enough.  One of the babies was stolen by Kavita, the little sister of his best friend, Vik.

The Dragon Thief  (Random House, Oct 22 1019) picks up the story right where we left it.  Jaxon is worried about Ma, who has fallen into a strange sleep, and he's desperate to get the baby dragon to the magical world.  Kavita is worried about the baby dragon, which grows at an alarming rate when it gets fed.  When she realizes she can't keep it safe, her old aunty who lives with her family decides to help her get it home.

So on the one hand we have Jaxon and Vik, racing to find Kavita while figuring out how they can manage to open a door to the other realm, and on the other we have Kavita, an increasingly large dragonet, and her aunty on a journey to the same goal....

Jaxon's well aware he needs help, so when a mysterious man named Blue, covered with tattoos, offers assistance, Jaxon things this might be what he needs.  But the man is a trickster, with an agenda of his own...and the fate of the little dragon hangs (very tensly) in the balance!  (Blue's motivations and actions are ambiguous; I love a nice ambiguous "bad" guy, and I hope we meet him again in a future book so we can see if his point of view is in fact at all valid....)

It's a great story for younger middle grade readers (8-10 year olds).  There's a nice serving of ordinary story, including Jaxon and Vic becoming friends with a boy they'd steered clear of because of being intimidated by his large size, and Kavita finding out about her auntie's past in India (which offers an eye-opening bit of history).  The kids are very real characters, and one can easily imagine hanging out with them.  But the ordinary doesn't stay that way for long, as the boundaries between the magical and the real world collide, with the kids right smack in the middle of it!

It's lots of  fun, and I enjoyed it even more than I did book 1.  The only thing I can think of that would have made it even better would have been more dragon page time!

disclaimer:  the publisher sent review copies for Kidlitcon Providence 2019 last March, which came to my house, so of course I treated myself to one of the copies...and though I didn't get it read in time to pass on to another Kidlitcon attendee, I did find it a good home with a kid who loved it.