Silly and sweet, with a throwback feel.
Growing dragons cause mischief to flourish.
Young Tomas guards an important secret: a dragon fruit tree in his Grandad’s garden sprouts fruit that hatches into actual, living dragons. Tomas’ dragon, Flicker, is his small, constant companion and can change into a dazzling rainbow of colors. His best friends—Ted, Kat, and Kai—also have dragons that possess their own special abilities, like breathing ice. While the kids try to keep their wily winged pets concealed, the dragons cause silly mayhem. But soon, as more strange events occur, the group begins to wonder: Could their nemesis, Liam, also have a dragon? Once Liam’s ulterior motives are uncovered, Tomas and his friends must stop him before his ego threatens the safety of their own dragons. Shepherd’s feel-good friendship tale has an endearingly nostalgic feel as the gang adventures, hangs out, and cracks jokes with nary an electronic doodad in sight. The outdoors factors in prominently, with gentle warnings about the harm done by pesticides. This follow-up to The Boy Who Grew Dragons (2020) is an accessible jumping-in point for new readers, providing enough worldbuilding (and well-timed potty humor) to be inviting. Ogilvie’s black-and-white illustrations are absolutely adorable and, coupled with the clever marginalia (such as pages that appear singed), make for heightened visual interest. Most characters read as White; Ted has darker skin and curly black hair.
Silly and sweet, with a throwback feel. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4998-1178-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Yellow Jacket
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
More hijinks-filled adventure than mystery, this is sure to win an audience.
Ben Silverstein’s summer with Grandpa is about to go wild.
When his parents need to “work out some troubles,” 10-year-old Ben gets shipped off to tiny Buttonville, where everything seems to be closed or out of business since the button factory was shuttered years ago. Ben’s used to spending summers in the pool in his Los Angeles backyard with his friends, and Buttonville looks positively coma-inducing. When Grandpa’s mouser Barnaby deposits what has to be a baby dragon on Ben’s bed, Ben and his new friend Pearl (whom the whole town calls “troublemaker” on account of a few innocent incidents) decide to visit the new “worm doctor” who has moved into the abandoned button factory. (Ben had heard her strange assistant Mr. Tabby buying ingredients for “dragon’s milk” at the grocery....) When their visit unleashes a hairy, pudding-loving imaginary beast on the town of Buttonville, Ben and Pearl volunteer to catch him. Selfors kicks off her Imaginary Veterinary series with a solid, entertaining opener. Ben and Pearl are Everykids that readers will relate to, and the adults of Buttonville are often delightfully weird and clueless. Twenty-five pages of backmatter include information on wyverns and sasquatch as well as the science of reptiles and a pudding recipe.
More hijinks-filled adventure than mystery, this is sure to win an audience. (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-20934-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
