2024
WISE Score
Think How to Train Your Dragon meets The Martian—a high-stakes survival story with scales and space suits.
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The Last Dragon on Mars is a solid addition to the 'chosen one' library. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but it puts that wheel on a rover and adds wings. If your kid is into Wings of Fire but is starting to get curious about space, this is an easy win.
It's a quick read with enough momentum to satisfy kids who usually prefer a controller to a book. The Martian setting adds a layer of 'cool' that keeps it from feeling like just another generic fantasy quest.
Perfect for the 9-13 crowd. It hits that middle-grade sweet spot where the stakes are high but the content stays within the guardrails of juvenile fiction.
The core of the story is about a boy and his dragon forming a bond to save their community. It models responsibility and courage without being preachy.
Mashups are great, and 'How to Train Your Dragon' in a pressurized Martian colony is a fun, high-concept setting that invites kids to think about future-tech and mythology simultaneously.
It's a Simon & Schuster middle-grade novel. While there is 'struggle' and 'military zones,' the content is curated for the 9-14 age bracket. No major red flags for the intended audience.
Offers some light environmental and social commentary regarding the difficulty of life on Mars, but functions primarily as a fast-paced adventure.
By 2026, we've seen a lot of 'kid finds a secret creature' stories, but The Last Dragon on Mars manages to feel fresh by leaning into the claustrophobia of its setting. Lunar Jones isn't just a kid in a village; he's a kid in a pressurized dome where every breath is accounted for. This adds a layer of survivalist tension that you don't get in standard fantasy.
Authorially, the book leans into the 'Juvenile Fiction' tropes—the adults are often secretive or incompetent, leaving the kids to do the heavy lifting—but the dragon-rider dynamic is handled with enough sincerity to make it work. The dragons themselves aren't just pets; they're portrayed as essential to the colony's future, which raises the stakes beyond just 'boy and his dog' territory.
If your kid is a fan of Percy Jackson or the Skyward series, they'll find a lot to like here. It's the kind of book that works well for a long car ride or a summer reading list because it's cinematic enough to keep their attention without requiring a dictionary every three pages.
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