The Dragon's Eye

by Norma Johnston

When an anonymous graffiti smear campaign begins against unpopular Doris Haywood, sixteen-year-old Jenny investigates, discovering in the process a champion football player in jeopardy, a young life cut tragically short, and a cover-up attempt.

Paperback

First published October 31, 1990

About the author

Norma Johnston was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA, the only child of Marjorie (Pierce), a teacher and Charles Eugene Chambers Johnston, an engineer. She read voraciously--especially mysteries, to which her family was addicted. She was ducated at Ramsey public schools and Montclair State College, later studied acting at the American Theatre Wing and elsewhere, and received a teaching certificate from Montclair College. She was actress, director, designer, stylist, retailer, teacher, counselor, entrepreneur, preacher, editor, ... and in between all her other careers she was the author of more than 70 novels, mainly gothic romances for teens. She become a a full-time writer in 1973.

Johnston also wrote under the pseudonyms of Nicole St. John, Pamela Dryden, Lavinia Harris, Kate Chambers, Catherine E. Chambers, Elizabeth Bolton, and Adrian Robert.

Reviews

[Linda]

Norma Johnston is usually a great author with insight into teenager's dilemmas. I've read several other of her books. This book is well written, but for me it just dragged.

It deals with a series of painted walls in the school and computer-generated letters plus a mechanical voice on the school intercom smearing the name and reputation of 2 girls. They sign themself the "Dragon's Eye. One girl is not liked and the other is the popular heroine of the story, Jenny. Jenny vows to get to the bottom of it, but is met with rebuff from the other victim. A tragedy occurs in this book, and that's odd for a YA book. I don't think that the tragedy devastated family and friends as much as it would have in real life. I was rather surprised sat the ending, though.

So, I liked this book but didn't love it.