~Post by Kester
My son, Harrison, is 7 years old and getting ready to enter the 3rd grade. He’s a precocious reader, but still likes a bit of harmless summer reading fun. Which means that he digs on The Chronicles of Narnia as well as Calvin & Hobbes. His favorite books include The Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle In Time.
This summer, BookKids is doing a kids’ summer reading program in which kids read 6 books (three of which must be from the BookKids list, three of which are kid’s choice) before the summer is out. Harrison is beginning the summer with 3 books off of the 3rd and 4th grade list as well as 3 of his own. The 3 he chose off the BookPeople list are Dragonbreath, Shakespeare’s Secret, and The Sisters Grimm. The 3 of his own choosing are Treasure Island, The Great Brain, and at least one of the books in The Chronicles of Prydain series, beginning with The Book of Three. I have decided to read these books as well and then have us blog together about our thoughts on the books.
We begin with Dragonbreath, the shortest and easiest to read of the books on the list.
Danny Dragonbreath is, you guessed it, a dragon. Not a komodo dragon like Big Eddy, the bully. He’s a real dragon, like the stuff of legends. But real dragons breathe fire. And Danny hasn’t quite mastered that. In fact, Danny is a kid who has quite a bit left to master. His at-the-last-minute written report on the ocean received a grade of F and his potato salad tried to stab him with a fork. If it weren’t for the encouragement of his parents and best friend, Wendell (an iguana), he might just give up hope.
Written as half comic strip and half straight prose, Dragonbreath is a funny enough little story. The comic strip bits are sort of like a less funny Calvin & Hobbes, and the undersea adventure that ends up being most of the story (Danny goes to visit his cousin Edward, a sea monster, when he’s ordered to rewrite his report on the ocean) is like an educational episode of SpongeBob Squarepants.
Harrison preferred the comic book parts of the book, as did I. In fact, the jokes and storyline read very much like a weekly comic strip. Still, it’s a harmless bit of fun and an easy read for kids looking for something light. And a living potato salad is kind of funny, though not as funny as when Calvin makes his oatmeal into a monster. Harrison’s favorite character was the fun-loving and goofy Danny, while I thought the cautious and nerdy sidekick, Wendell, to be more interesting.
Dragonbreath is the first in a series and a good way for early readers to get engaged with reading. Harrison thought it was kind of funny and finished it in about half an hour. So, for the amount of effort it takes, the payoff is acceptable. Both of us “liked it pretty much” as Harrison says. We probably won’t remember it years from now. But then, not every book needs to be that kind of memorable. Some books are just there to be enjoyed in the moment before we move on to what’s next. In this case, what’s next is probably Shakespeare’s Secret, a book Harrison and I are both enjoying far more.
BookPeople 