Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern Series #1) » (Reprint)

Anne McCaffrey received the 1999 Margaret A. Edwards Award, given by the American Library Association to honor authors for their lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

After ten long turns, Lessa was ready to come out of hiding, to reclaim her birthright...and to Impress the young dragon queen and become Weyrwoman of Benden.

Suddenly the deadly silver Thread once again threatened all Pern with destruction. But the mighty telepathic dragons that for centuries had defended Pern were now few in number, not nearly enough to protect the planet in its hour of greatest peril. So Lessa hatched a daring and dangerous scheme: Rally support from people who had long ago ceased to exist...

Gale Research

A planet protected from deadly spores by fire-breathing dragons and their human partners, Pern is a former colony of Earth which has lost much of its knowledge of science and history. In such novels as Dragonflight, Dragonquest: Being the Further Adventures of the Dragonriders of Pern, and The White Dragon, McCaffrey presents Pern as a land in which "social structure, tensions, legends, and traditions are all based on the fundamental ecological battle [against the `Thread' spores] and on the empathetic kinship between dragon and rider," Debra Rae Cohen comments inCrawdaddy.