Dragons: Father and Son by Alexandre Lacroix and Ronan Badel (Words and Pictures)

Here's a very neat little moral message story that feels absolutely relevant and timely...
Fatherhood. It's a weird transitional state for a lot of men and I speak from direct experience. Before Charlotte rolled along I had no idea what it would be like to have someone around that identified me as "Daddy", looked up to me, looked to me for guidance and inspiration or sometimes just a big cuddle.

It's actually quite a scary thing most of the time, striking a balance between always wanting to be a good dad and passing on knowledge, experience and having tons of fun (hopefully) at the same time. The older Charlotte gets, the tougher and scarier it all seems to become but obviously there's three of us to make that balance work, and fingers crossed so far it seems to be working.

Rambling aside, the father in this book is pretty solidly single-minded that his son is going to be a mini version of him. He's going to be scary. He's going to be feared. He's going to raze villages to the ground with his fiery breath in order to maintain this status quo.

Only, junior doesn't seem to share the same idyll. Drake the Dragon is nonetheless sent off to a local village to work on his fire breathing.

Drake really isn't that keen at all, and soon realises that humans aren't all bad, and there are friends to be made - and other experiences to be had that lead him on a journey of discovery and delight.

Obviously that doesn't wash well with Dad - until Drake manages to show him something that changes his mind, and his whole attitude.

This book proved to be an unexpected delight. Again, we often find that picture books taken on face value as being a fairly mundane run of the mill story are the complete opposite once we dig in, and in fact (like any good book) different folk will come away from this one with a different view of the moral at its heart. I rather liked coming away with the idea that even curmudgeonly stubborn old dads can change their minds, change their attitudes, loosen up and learn as much from their kids as they hope their kids will learn from them.

It's an awesome book and having dragons as the central characters just makes it even better really.

Charlotte's best bit: Drake and the old fisherman.

Daddy's favourite bit: Coming away from a children's picture book with so many things to think about. A fabulous dad / son book that might make you think a lot about the way you interact with your kids for the better.

"Dragons: Father and Son" by Alexandre Lacroix and Ronan Badel is out now, published by Words and Pictures (Kindly supplied for review)