A “talon-ted” tightrope walk between character education and entertaining whimsy.
There are many reasons to be friends with dragons, yet they, just like humans, can make mistakes.
While dragons’ fire-breathing abilities mean their friends will always have perfectly toasted marshmallows, flames unintentionally come out of their mouths when they get mad, which can be dangerous indeed. Dragons can help you reach items on the highest shelves…alas, they are not always the best at sharing what they find up there. Fortunately, although dragons can sometimes “forget to be good friends,” they do know how to apologize and “clean up any mess they have made.” These are just some of the many attributes that Locke weighs in this thinly veiled attempt to teach young children good behavior, such as sharing and taking turns, and positive values, such as patience and compromise. A casually diverse cast of children (including a boy using a wheelchair) and endearing, facially expressive, multicolored dragons make this engaging book worthy of readers’ time. The bright, colorful cartoony illustrations are rambunctiously fun and include witty subtleties, though some details get swallowed by the gutter. The text is at once lighthearted and instructive as a reminder of qualities that are important to find in both ourselves and our loved ones.
A “talon-ted” tightrope walk between character education and entertaining whimsy. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7624-7324-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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Like the last sip of a chocolate milkshake, it’s very satisfying.
A story-reading dragon—what’s not to like?
Duncan the Dragon loves to read. But the stories so excite him, his imagination catches fire—and so do his books, leaving him wondering about the endings. Does the captain save the ship? Do aliens conquer the Earth? Desperate to reach the all-important words “The End” (“like the last sip of a chocolate milk shake”), he tries reading in the refrigerator, in front of a bank of electric fans, and even in a bathtub filled with ice. Nothing works. He decides to ask a friend to read to him, but the raccoon, possum, and bull all refuse. Weeping, Duncan is ready to give up, but one of his draconic tears runs “split-splat into a mouse,” a book-loving mouse! Together they battle sea monsters, dodge icebergs, and discover new lands, giving rise to a fast friendship. Driscoll’s friendly illustrations are pencil sketches painted in Adobe Photoshop; she varies full-bleed paintings with vignettes surrounded by white space, imaginary scenes rendered in monochrome to set them apart. Duncan himself is green, winged, and scaly, but his snout is unthreateningly bovine, and he wears red sneakers with his shoelaces untied—a nicely vulnerable touch. Though there are lots of unusual friendship stories in picture books, the vivid colors, expressive faces, and comic details make this one likely to be a storytime hit.
Like the last sip of a chocolate milkshake, it’s very satisfying. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75507-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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