There's nothing quite like getting out into the garden on a summer's day to do a bit of weeding, maybe plant out some new seeds or plants or tend to your (wilting) veg (if your garden is anything like ours at the moment!)
In "The Boy Who Grew Dragons", the first book in a fab new series from Andy Shepherd and Sara Ogilvie (whose illustrations just fill us with such glee) meet young Tomas, a boy who finds a very odd looking tree surrounded by weeds at the bottom of his Grandad's garden.
Tomas doesn't think much of the tree. It's useless for climbing, and looks pretty worn out but when he takes one of the weird looking fruit from the tree, he soon discovers there's more to this odd plant than meets the eye.
Before his very eyes a tiny dragon hatches from the weird fruit, kicking off an amazing adventure with Tomas' new found friend Flicker (which is, let's face it, a great name for a wee dragon!)
Now, kids at this point may be enthralled by the idea of having a tiny dragon as a pet - it is pretty cool but it's also pretty dangerous.
You see, even the tiniest dragons can still set fire to your toothbrush or leave your favourite pair of underpants hanging from the TV aerial for all the neighbours to see. That's not the end of Flicker's mischief either.
Tomas' life gets even more complicated when even more dragonfruit appear on Grandad's tree...more mischief and mayhem ensues but now Tomas has a new official title and duty. He is "The Boy Who Grew Dragons!"
There's such a glorious dose of mischief and atmosphere in this book, reminiscent of classic stories like "Five Children and It" but with a contemporary and welcoming dose of humour, plus - as we've already mentioned - Sara's utterly glorious illustrations underpinning this story.
It's that rare thing, the perfect book for such a wide variety of ages and just full of the sort of crazy and chaotic adventure and magic we really crave in our middle grade books. Absolutely wonderful stuff from Andy and Sara.
"The Boy Who Grew Dragons" by Andy Shepherd and Sara Ogilvie is out now, published by Piccadilly Press (kindly supplied for review).