THE PET DRAGON

After her father banishes her beloved pet dragon to a cage for breaking a vase, it disappears and young Lin must set out across the Chinese landscape in pursuit. Carrying a little lady across the water is a good deed, indeed, for the lady is a witch and facilitates Lin’s happy reunion with her dragon friend and her now-happy father. Niemann’s striking graphic style showcases his interpretation of Chinese pictographs as an element of the storytelling. Thus Lin climbs over three brown mountain peaks tipped in white, with three bold black lines soaring vertically over the image to represent the pictograph for mountain. There are no traditional delicate brush-strokes on these pages; the typeface is bold and clean. It’s an adventure to see the connection between a tree and its pictograph, two trees side by side becoming the woods and three trees together as the forest. Children can trace their fingers over the lines and into other books and resources. Hao shu! Good book! (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)