Dragons father and son

PreS-Gr 2-Two dragons, a father and son, learn that there are many ways to be a dragon. One day Drake's father tells his son that he must go to the village and burn down a house. Why? It's tradition. So Drake flies to the village and picks a house to burn down but is interrupted by the excited shouts of a small boy, who is ecstatic that dragons exist. Drake is persuaded not to burn down that house and each subsequent substitution (the school, a fishing shack) is also squashed. Not only are the villagers crafty enough to subvert his fiery endeavors-they actually like dragons quite a bit. When he returns home, Drake is able to convince his father that there might be other ways to be famous. The cartoonish line-and-watercolor drawings are filled with gleeful and terrified expressions of the townspeople, and there are many smaller details that will reward repeated readings. Drake's father, drawn complete with muscle shirt and five-o'clock shadow, is incredibly expressive in his fuming anger and crankiness. The background is filled with the comedic antics of a village shocked by a dragon's appearance and the text moves speedily through the silly situations. Readers are sure to cheer when Drake discovers that he can be his own dragon, no burning down houses required. VERDICT Subversive and comical, this read-aloud is sure to please storytime audiences. Recommended for purchase for medium to large collections or anywhere dragon tales are popular.-Laken Hottle, Providence Community Library © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Drake the young dragon learns that tradition has two sides, and only one is buttered.Drake lives with his father, a blustering, flame-belching, butterball-bellied bully in a wife-beater, who has decided that it's time that Drake "behaved like a real dragon" and "burn a few houses." "But why?" Drake wonders. "It's tradition!" Flying over the village in search of a suitable house to immolate, Drake espies a perfect wooden target. Just as he is working up a head of steam, a boy runs out, and they quickly bond over the strictures of parents. "And if you don't do what he says, will you be told off?" The boy suggests an alternative: the schoolhouse. The students disarm Drake with their admiration, however, and so it goes at each new venue: something intervenes to forestall Drake's scorched-earth tradition. Lacroix's narrative is modestly wordy for a picture book but not aimlessly so, and the storyline has a pleasingly low-key humor that neatly displays the blinkered side of tradition. The design of the book, along with Badel's illustrationstwo-page spreads in which a complete page of elegantly wonky watercolor artwork bleeds into the opposite text pagegives the story an exceptional sense of flow. Drake is pudgily adorable, and the humans (all evidently white) have a Quentin Blake-esque air to them. One of those modest efforts that throws off more light than one might expect from the humble glow of its parts. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.