How to Be a Dragon — Arlene Williams

How would it feel to be turning into a dragon, scale by scale, fang by fang, claw by claw? Rozzie Banks is about to find out. She is transported into a difficult new world, living with her estranged father in an isolated Nevada mining community. Rozzie despises her new life until, one day, inside a mountain cavern, she meets a shadowy dragon. Touching a mysterious teardrop, she begins her transformation into a dragon herself.

This drastic event catapults Rozzie into a fantastic journey through the loneliness and resentment that have plagued her for a very long time. A delightful, eccentric neighbor becomes her ally, but it is the difficult people that she meets--a handsome troubled boy and a ruthless man--who help her unravel the angry knot inside as she learns the secret of being a dragon without burning her tongue.