How long does it take to read Dragon Keeper?
Dragon Keeper by Carole Wilkinson takes about 6 hours 13 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 13 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2003. 339 pages, about 93,225 words. Written for children.
13 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 10 hours 22 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 13 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 53 minutes |
The page count is the median across 23 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
set in China in 141 B.C. In a remote western palace, Ping, a slave girl of unknown origin, serves the emperor's Dragon Keeper, an incompetent drunkard who neglects the two last-known dragons in his charge. When one of them dies and an evil hunter threatens to kill the other for his magical body parts, the old dragon, Danzi, escapes with the girl. He entrusts Ping with his precious and beautiful purple stone, which he is determined to take to the ocean. As they make their long journey east, Ping develops plausibly from a terrified, abused child into a confident young woman who truly deserves the official title of Dragon Keeper. Beset with self-doubt, often making mistakes, she slowly becomes aware of her innate powers, which includes second sight. The plot twists and turns, cinematic action comes in bursts, and villains are vile, while Danzi, Ping, and her pet rat are heroic, appealing companions who can fight or scheme their way out of every tight spot. Danzi sometimes speaks like a Daoist philosopher, but his telepathic communication with Ping too often resembles the truncated phrases of a Chinese speaker still learning English
Subjects: Juvenile fiction, Dragons, Courage, Fiction, Friendship, Orphans