"The Adventures of Egg Box Dragon" written by the sadly departed Watership Down author Richard Adams, with illustrations by Alex T. Smith (author and illustrator of the fabulous 'Claude' series amongst many others) makes for one heck of a dream team.
The story begins with a little girl making her own fabulous mythical creature from an eggbox and some scraps of cloth and paper, with bike reflector eyes and binbag wings.
But there's a whiff of magic in the air. The little girl soon realises that her amazing creation has somehow come to life!
What's more, this is no ordinary dragon - this is a dragon that is an expert at finding things.
Soon the dragon's skills (as well as his rather unfortunate tendency to set things on fire) catches everyone's attention. People flock from far and wide to enlist the dragon's help in finding everything from a lost ball to a set of shop keys.
But there's a higher calling in store for the dragon and her owner - as they are ushered to the palace to help the Queen find a missing diamond from her crown!
It's such a lovely little story this, full of Adams' trademark warmth and awesome characterisations (though thankfully without some of the more harrowing and dark stuff we've seen in his other books).
Alex's awesome artwork is as fab as ever (no one, but NO ONE draws eccentric old ladies like this guy!)
We had so much fun, that Charlotte decided to make her very own eggbox dragon too (complete with opening mouth, ready to snap up some treasure!!)
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| Do you think he'll help me find my missing car keys, miss? |
Daddy's favourite bit: Utterly brilliant fun, a quirky and charming corker of a book destined to become a classic.
"The Adventures of Eggbox Dragon" by Richard Adams and Alex T. Smith is out now, published by Hodder Children's Books (kindly supplied for review)