Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley

I fell in love with Robin McKinley in The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown.  So far I have yet to read any of her retellings but Sunshine showed me that I loved McKinley and not just the world of Damar.  She won my heart again with this modern fantasy tale of dragons.  In a world where dragons are real but on the brink of extinction to be found only in national parks we meet Jake, our narrator born and raised in the national park.  His unique but simple enough life turns upside down when he finds a dead poacher, a dead mother dragon and her dead babies… all but one, Lois.  He saves her out of instinct, but though it is illegal to kill a dragon, it is also illegal to keep one alive.  Once again McKinley crafts a flawless world and drops you in with a colorful cast of characters that makes you look at the definition of family in a wonderful light.  (On a side note I kept getting distracted on the concept of what is intelligence because it keeps coming up in my education classes and then there it is in my fun reading as well.)