YA - Draco's Child (by Sharon Plumb)

Paperback
14.2 x 21.6 cm (5.6 x 8.5 in)

Varia lives with her family and a handful of other space colonists on a planet they call “The Kettle”. She might be 12, or 13 or 14 — because she spent several years on a spaceship getting to her new home, and time is different at high speeds, so no one really knows.

One thing she does know is that her colony is in danger. Their food is infested by fungus, the ship containing the other half of their colony disappeared on entry, and two of their group died of a horrible sickness shortly after exploring the forest around their base. The planet is obviously hostile to animal life–it has none except a few kinds of overgrown insects.

Then two things happen. A star child falls out of the sky and starts offering them help–in return for letting it shrink them back into children. And Varia discovers the skeleton of a dragon in a cave, along with a brilliantly coloured egg. So of course, she hatches it.

Varia will be tested as never before as she attempts to save her colony and reverse whatever it was that killed off all the planet’s animals. But to do so, she must figure out who she can trust: the mysterious star child or the secretive dragon. Because they are at war with each other, and they can’t both win.