Flashy but flat.
Little Emma’s cardboard creation conquers the world!
Egg Box Dragon’s eyes are made of “shiny bicycle reflectors,” and most of the rest of him is fashioned from cut-up pieces of an egg carton, painted green. When Emma brings him home, perched atop a pillow in her little red wagon, “everyone admired him enormously.” The local gardener declares, “that critter’s got magic”—a prophetic statement, as the next morning he develops a reputation as the supreme finder of lost articles. These include Emma’s dad’s glasses, next-door-neighbor Mrs. Hapgood’s tortoise, and little Tom’s missing soccer ball (called a “football” in this British import). Aided by the TV news, the Egg Box Dragon’s reputation spreads all the way to the queen. When she loses the biggest diamond in her crown, she sends a royal car to Emma’s house to ask for Egg Box Dragon’s help. He succeeds handily, receiving a medal and a whole chocolate cake. Smith’s illustrations are delightful, with an appealing abundance of white space, and a whole lot of fun with the diminutive draconic protagonist. Perhaps most delicious of all is his untraditional casting of palace personnel, from a queen of color through her evidently mostly female staff, including butler and soldiers. (Emma and her family present white.) But the story, a posthumous offering from the author of Watership Down, feels haphazard, all the way down to Emma’s nonrelationship with her creation.
Flashy but flat. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4449-3840-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hachette UK
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another absurd tale of the omnivorous old woman consuming the inedible.
A very silly fairy tale–inspired riff on the nursery rhyme.
The light-skinned old lady scarfs down a dragon for no discernable reason: “Can you imagine?” The dragon is followed by a tan-skinned princess “to guide the dragon,” a light-skinned knight “to soar with the princess,” a castle “for all to assemble,” a moat “to surround the castle,” a light-skinned mermaid “to float in the moat,” and finally “a book.” That volume proves to be a purgative: The old lady “began to exhale,” and “out came a magical fairy tale.” The one page of the fairy-tale book shown depicts the knight saving the princess from the dragon (the mermaid is just an onlooker) above the final phrase, “Happy reading!” No guiding, soaring, or assembling in sight. The mortal peril of ingesting heaps of the ridiculous has disappeared: There’s no more threat that “perhaps she’ll die.” Frequent repetition of imagine to rhyme with dragon might prove trying, but the zany action overcomes the tedium: Lee’s cartoon characters, bug-eyed and bulbous-nosed, slide down the old lady’s maw and float in her belly. Like many of the books in this astoundingly popular and drawn-out series, this one abandons the metrical structure and the logic of the original, and unlike some, it does not add educational tidbits. Still, past performance and the wacky illustrations promise library, classroom, and bedtime thrills. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Another absurd tale of the omnivorous old woman consuming the inedible. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1338879117
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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