SUPER-DRAGON

A dragon contest is announced. There will be fire-breathing competitions and flying acrobatics. Young Drago wants in on the action, but his sister says he’s too little, his mother reminds him that he doesn’t know how to fly, his father counsels that next year he will be bigger. But Drago has pluck. With the help of Tweet the bird, he not only learns how to use his wings (which is akin to learning how to ride a bicycle—after many false starts, it just happens), but becomes a veritable demon of the sky. Holgate’s comic-book–style illustrations, featuring primordial landscapes through which Drago moves with high octane, lighten this straightforward lesson in perseverance, but readers will have some obvious questions about Drago’s circumstances. Why didn’t Drago’s family give him at least a chance to learn to fly, since clearly he was ready? Why did he have to learn to fly at night? And why did Drago feel it necessary to hide his newfound talent from his family? It all feels strangely furtive when it should be the natural course of things. Yet it is gratifying that Drago exceeds all expectations by zipping through a snappy series of figure 8s, while his family can do no better than figure 5s, 7s and 9s. Nyah, nyah, nyah, naysayers. (Picture book. 4-8)