Being Friends with Dragons

Review\n“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.”―Kirkus Review\nDragons can be great friends . . . most of the time.
Dragons always know the best games to play, the perfect way to toast a marshmallow, and how to get that cookie out of a cookie jar undetected. While dragons can be good friends, they sometimes forget how. They can yell, stomp their feet, shoot flames out of their mouths, and not be a very good listener. It can be hard to be friends with a dragon, but with some deep breaths and calming words, you and your dragon can learn how to be best friends forever.\nFrom School Library Journal\nPreS-K-Friendship with dragons serves as a stand-in for friendship between children in this concept book, whose text can be divided roughly into three sections. First, readers explore the upsides of dragon camaraderie, both intuitive (they can toast marshmallows on camping trips) and charmingly unexpected (they love collecting seashells). Next, the pitfalls of dragons' bad behavior (like human children, they get angry, yell, and refuse to share). Finally, the ending contains advice for children on resolving disputes with their dragon companions and promoting harmony going forward. In bright, cartoonish digital spot drawings, vignettes, and full-page illustrations, Ewen employs an assortment of patterns and textures to visualize the imaginative informational text. She takes care to depict characters of varying ability: a child using a wheelchair and one wearing leg braces feature among the humans engaged in joyful, active play, and the most frequently appearing dragon sports purple wingtip eyeglasses. Moments of outlandish humor will elicit chuckles, particularly the recurring visual of the dragons' preferred delicacy, spaghetti with eyeballs. However, the book's conclusion is not substantial, and, as they accumulate, Locke's drily delivered precepts ("Dragons remind each other to share, to take turns, and to say please and thank you.") begin to grow preachy. VERDICT Straightforward text and zany illustrations provide a moderately enjoyable experience, but the presentation of social-emotional learning soon grows moralistic.-Jonah Draganα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.