Dragons in a Bag
42 pages • 1-hour read
Zetta ElliottDragons in a Bag
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Family and Community
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
Through Jaxon’s adventures, Elliott affirms the importance of family and community. Ma welcomes Jaxon into the magical community by introducing him to characters like Ambrose, Sis, and Professor L. Roy Jenkins. The titles that Ma and Sis are known by are relational terms, which emphasizes how close-knit this community is. In addition, the author uses the lens of fantasy to examine real-world threats to Brooklyn’s Black communities, particularly gentrification. The displacement of long-term residents directly correlates to the borough’s dwindling magic: “Ma looks up and down the block and sadly shakes her head. ‘Brooklyn ain’t what it used to be. Sometimes I look around and hardly recognize the place. […] Brooklyn’s lost its magic. All kinds of creatures used to call this place home. But not anymore’” (40). The changes and challenges facing Brooklyn’s communities have a major impact on the story’s structure because Ma and Jaxon strive to find a more hospitable home for the dragon hatchlings. By making gentrification and the erosion of Black neighborhoods issues for both humans and fantasy creatures, Elliott emphasizes the importance of working together to preserve communities.
Elliott further develops this theme through Jaxon’s biological and chosen family members. Family is a prevalent theme in middle grade fiction, and the author addresses some of the real-world issues and complexities that families face, including the loss of a parent and estrangement. When the novel begins, Jaxon has never even heard of Ma, but his mother feels so desperately devoid of a support system that she turns to her estranged mother figure for help. The author uses Ma’s character to express the importance of found family. Although she has no biological descendants, she has cared for many children over the years, including Alicia: “Raising a child is the hardest job in the world, Jax. I should know—I’ve raised plenty” (34). Ma’s nurturing love for Jaxon makes her a grandmotherly figure to him as well as a mentor, and the familial bond that develops between the characters propels the story’s plot. Trouble also plays a key role in this theme. Although magic gives him community and purpose, it has led to distance between him and his daughter. At the end of the novel, Alicia’s relationships with Ma and Trouble still need mending, but Jaxon’s determination to be a bridge between his loved ones and Ma’s affirmation that Alicia will “always be family” to her offer hope of reconciliation (143). Over the course of the novel, Jaxon discovers that he is part of a resilient community and works to heal the divisions within his family.
The Magic and Wonder in Everyday Life
Dragons in a Bag celebrates the magic and wonder in everyday life. The genre of urban fantasy supports this theme because Elliott combines supernatural elements with a real-world setting. For example, the novel’s title juxtaposes dragons, a classic fantasy element, with something ordinary, Ma’s “old-lady purse” (31). Ma herself looks like “an ordinary old woman” (8), but thanks to the witch, Jaxon discovers a whole new side to the city he’s lived in his whole life. From leaping boxes to squirrels that understand human speech, the magical elements that appear early in the story act as a wake-up call, alerting the main character that there is more to his familiar borough than he realizes.
As the story continues, the author’s usage of magic calls on the reader to have a greater appreciation for the places they call home and the people they share these communities with. For instance, the character of Ambrose advances the theme while providing social commentary: “Before today, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to a homeless man sitting on a bench in front of Prospect Park. But now that I know Ma’s a witch, nothing seems normal. If Ambrose wasn’t wearing a hundred different pieces of clothing, I think he’d be invisible!” (48). Ambrose’s invisibility is both an example of magic from an everyday source and a critique of society’s tendency to ignore unhoused people. Elliott also uses Prospect Park’s guardhouses, which serve as a motif of the theme, to point out how people often overlook the extraordinary around them. The guardhouses transport Jaxon and other characters through time and space, but they seem unremarkable to passersby: “A bus lumbers along Flatbush Avenue, and the few joggers going in and out of the park barely notice me and Ma as we emerge from the guardhouse” (139). This suggests that when something becomes familiar, people forget how remarkable it is and take it for granted. Jaxon’s visit to the magical realm is one of the moments that most sparks the protagonist’s sense of wonder. In addition, the author’s decision to have some “features of the world [that Jaxon and Trouble] live in […] mirrored in the realm of magic” uses the supernatural setting to affirm the magic and beauty in the real world (114). As Jaxon comes to better understand and cherish Brooklyn through his adventures, his story encourages Elliott’s young readers to cultivate their sense of wonder and see the extraordinary within the ordinary.
The Journey Toward Responsibility and Personal Growth
Over the course of the novel, Jaxon embarks on a journey toward responsibility and personal growth. At the start of the story, the nine-year-old possesses some qualities often associated with maturity in children, including restraint over his emotions, polite manners, and consideration of others’ feelings: “Mrs. Patel calls me a good influence. That’s what the grown-ups who know me always say” (4). At the same time, he exhibits a timidity that keeps him from expressing his desires. For example, he doesn’t tell Alicia that he’d rather go to Vikram’s house than stay with Ma because he doesn’t want to add to her stress. Jaxon gradually begins to assert himself more, such as when he storms out of Ma’s apartment after she insults his mother. While this action is impulsive, it demonstrates that the protagonist is starting to make his own choices rather than simply complying with others’ expectations of him.
Jaxon’s decision to become Ma’s helper exerts a major influence on his growth and his journey toward responsibility. Many of the protagonist’s actions, including his decision to accompany her on her mission to deliver the baby dragons, stem from a desire to prove that he is different from the witch’s other prospective apprentices and that she can count on him in the face of challenges: “How many new recruits have walked away when Ma needed their help?” (54). Although Jaxon leaves Ma to face the dinosaur on her own, this setback ultimately heightens his desire to help others and his resolve to prove that he can handle important responsibilities. When Kavita’s theft is discovered, the protagonist shows maturity by taking accountability for the situation and promising to make it right: “‘A promise in this realm carries real weight, Jax.’ ‘It means a lot in my world, too,’ I tell her. Sis looks down at me, and I think I can see something in her eyes that wasn’t there before: respect” (137). Jaxon’s newfound confidence and convictions ground him, allowing him to open up to his mother about his determination to become Ma’s apprentice even though he knows that this will upset her: “Bad things happen, and sometimes there’s nothing we can do. But this time, there is something I can do. I want to help Ma return the last dragon” (148). This direct expression of his desires stands in stark contrast to his behavior at the beginning of the novel, when he hid his own feelings so as not to place more strain on his mother. Jaxon’s journey of personal growth gives him a sense of duty not only to Ma but also to the world, positioning him to take on greater responsibilities in the next books.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence