What spark is within you?

With this cover, I assumed that The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey would be a very dragon-y kind of book.  Yes, there are dragons, but the story is more about the human characters: Liz, a potter who makes ceramic dragons; Lucy, her daughter; and David, a college student who is renting a room from them.  Lucy asks for David's help as she tries to save the neighborhood squirrels, which she has identified and even named.  As the squirrel rescue progresses, he starts to write a squirrel story for Lucy, which she loves; when he gets stuck, he gets inspiration from Gadzooks, a dragon he received from Liz.  But what is that "Hrrrr" sound David keeps hearing in the house, and how does Liz fire her ceramic creatures without an oven?  Readers may be a bit confused by some of the language - even though the story takes place in the U.S., the characters are obviously British - but will enjoy discovering multiple meanings of "the fire within."