THE ANGRY LITTLE KNIGHT

An insubstantial offering about a young knight who finds real adventure better than make-believe.         

Young Sir Henry Oliver Theodor Herbert Egbert Albert Dewinterbottom, commonly known as Sir Hothead, is a little noble who takes great pleasure in poking things—mostly inanimate ones—with his considerable collection of swords, lances, spears, halberds, what-have-you. He slashes and reams his various targets with abandon and would be content to for quite some time, until he hears the dragon’s roar echoing through the forest: It’s time for true engagement. He has a mildly comical joust with the baby beast, cures its hiccups and gets covered with soot. All good fun; all rather unabsorbing. There is no quickening of the blood as Hothead races across the drawbridge, no worry about the damage the dragon might inflict. Benign is the word, not only in the story, but in the artwork as well, which, except for the dragon, has a palette as personality-free as frosting without food coloring. And the lesson here of trial by fire and finding friendship is perhaps too thin to discover in the story, even ironically.

Evaporates nearly as completely as the smoke from a dragon’s breath.