Tell Me a Dragon

| Tasha

Tell Me a Dragon by Jackie Morris

Explore the world of wondrous dragons that come in all sizes and colors.  There are huge white dragons that fly through night skies, dragons that breathe flower petals not flame, and enormous dragons with tails as long as rivers that share cupcakes.  There are also tiny dragons, dragons made of fire, dragons that whisper stories and songs in your ear, and dragons that curl around you in your bed.  So the question is, with so many dragons what does yours look like?

Morris has created a book that is a lyrical song in honor of individuality and imagination.  Her dragons are all very different but all have curling talons and gleaming eyes in their combination of feline and lizard.  Dragons here are not to be feared but adored as the illustrations show.  The range of dragons from ice to water to fire and beyond is a delight to page through. 

This book is a great conversation starter or would serve as a wonderful basis for dragon art where children could draw their own dragon.  My 8-year-old is often unwilling to indulge in the questions of picture books anymore, but this one really spoke to him.  By the end, he had his own large dragon firmly in mind, a combination of all of the elements with all sorts of fire and ice breath and a deep blue-black color.  He was also eager to look at the end pages of the book and select which of the eggs his dragon would emerge from. 

A book that is beautiful in its own right and one that also demands that children participate, dream and wish on their own as well.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Featured on 7-Imp.

3 thoughts on “Tell Me a Dragon”

  1. Thanks so much for this.
    I was looking through some of my rejection letters earlier today that said that the book was too whimsical for the current market and lacking in narrative drive. I want to make books that are gateways into the imagination, where the person holding the book is the most important element. In my imagination each dragon has its own story, and a few things to say about their person. And now I have a small dragon in my head demanding its own book. The little dragon on the title page came very late to the book, and now he wants his own story. Together we might just find it.
    Bless you and bless your dragons too.

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  2. Thank you so much for writing! I hope there is always a place for whimsy, wandering and wondering in the marketplace. If not, we need a new marketplace!

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  3. Indeed we do. I fear that so many publishers these days lack something called imagination and are happy happy happy to follow trends, little understanding that there is only so much room on the bookshelves for vampire books. Vampires are the new schools for wizards, or so it would seem. Anyway, fortunately for me Frances Lincoln appreciate my whimsy, if not my utter and total inability to meet a deadline. After I finish The Ice Bear I will be working on a book of nursery rhymes and hope to pack as much detail and whimsy into the book as I can manage and, hopefully, produce really sophisticated images for very young children. Fingers crossed.
    Then again, maybe not fingers crossed, makes it too difficult to paint!

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