This was my favorite of the whole Storybreak series when I was a kid. It's still pretty neat, especially when you consider what passed for Saturday morning cartoons.
Jane Yolen's done a lot of interesting stuff. She even wrote a fourth book in the Pit Dragon series a few years ago.
And hey, Michael Reaves adapted it! He shows up everywhere in '80s cartoons!
I listened to this on the radio as I could get WJKW (CBS) in Cleveland. My parents were douches and had that anti-tv crap going. Actually seeing it was a horrible let down to the images I had formed in my mind.