Dragon Slayers' Academy
So you're a medieval peasant boy living a typical medieval peasant life, until one day a traveling minstrel tells you that you're destined to become a hero. What do you do? Enroll at a school for dragon slayers, of course! It's not all it's cracked up to be, though; the food is terrible, the teachers are kind of weird, and the headmaster cares more about gold than the welfare of his students (and on top of all that, the frequent encounters with a wizard who can't do anything right). This is the premise of Dragon Slayers' Academy, a series of children's books by Kate McMullan. The series chronicles the strange (and occasionally downright improbable) adventures of Wiglaf, a student at the eponymous Dragon Slayers' Academy.
List of books in the series
- The New Kid at School
- Revenge of the Dragon Lady
- Class Trip to the Cave of Doom
- A Wedding for Wiglaf?
- Knight for a Day
- Sir Lancelot, Where Are You?
- Wheel of Misfortune
- Countdown to the Year 1000
- 97 Ways to Train a Dragon
- Help! It's Parents Day at DSA
- Danger! Wizard at Work!
- The Ghost of Sir Herbert Dungeonstone
- Beware! It's Friday the 13th
- Pig Latin -- Not Just for Pigs!
- Double Dragon Trouble
- World's Oldest Living Dragon
- Hail! Hail! Camp Dragononka
- Never Trust a Troll!
- Little Giant -- Big Trouble
- According to the author's website, the final book will come out sometime in Spring 2012.
Tropes used in Dragon Slayers' Academy include:
- Adults Are Useless
- Afraid of Blood: Wiglaf.
- Anachronism Stew: There's a lot of this, in case the fact that the books are set in a school during the medieval period didn't tip you off.
- Badass Princess: Erica.
- Baleful Polymorph: In Danger! Wizard at Work!, Zelnoc turns the main characters into dragons.
- Big Eater: Angus.
- Black Sheep: Wiglaf.
- Cool Old Lady: Angus's aunt (and Mordred's sister), Lady Lobelia.
- Crossover: Countdown to the Year 1000 is a crossover with The Zack Files.
- Dean Bitterman: Mordred.
- The Dung Ages
- Extranormal Institute: Aside from the Dragon Slayers' Academy itself, there's also the other DSA, the Dragon Slackers' Academy (a school for dragons who are also slackers).
- Fantastic Racism: Goes both ways with humans and dragons.
- Intellectual Animal: Daisy.
- Jerkass: Mordred.
- Kid Hero: The entire point of DSA is to create these.
- Massive-Numbered Siblings:
- Wiglaf has twelve of them.
- Then there's Seetha, who has 3684 children. They don't call her "the Mother of All Dragons" for nothing!
- Money Fetish: Mordred will do pretty much anything to get his hands on some gold.
- My Name Is Not Durwood: Zelnoc never pronounces Wiglaf's name correctly.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Daisy.
- Only Sane Man: DSA's librarian, Brother Dave is one of the very few adult characters who isn't The Ditz, a Jerkass, incompetent, or all three.
- Pig Latin: Daisy (who is an actual pig) speaks Pig Latin because Zelnoc messed up a spell that was meant to turn her into a Talking Animal. In Pig Latin -- Not Just for Pigs!, King Ken also ends up speaking Pig Latin after yet another messed-up spell, courtesy of Zelnoc.
- Public Domain Character: Characters from the Arthurian mythos are featured in some of the books.
- Redheaded Hero: Wiglaf.
- Revenge: In Revenge of the Dragon Lady, Seetha comes after Wiglaf for killing one of her sons (hence the title).
- Shout-Out:
- Erica's parents are named Queen Barb and King Ken.
- Wiglaf is most likely named after a character from Beowulf.
- The Sixth Ranger: Technically the fourth ranger -- Janice, who joins the Power Trio after DSA starts accepting female students.
- Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Definitely on the silly end of the scale.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Erica, until Mordred turns DSA into a co-ed school (because more students = more money).
- Talking Animal: Parodied with Daisy, who can only speak Pig Latin.
- Three Amigos: Wiglaf, Angus, and Erica.
- Uplifted Animal: Daisy.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Every dragon has a secret weakness, and some of them are very weak. For example, Gorzil's is bad jokes and Seetha's is bathing.