Friday 2 November 2018

ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week ending 2nd November 2018: "Dragon Post" by Emma Yarlett (Walker Books)

It's the welcome return of Emma Yarlett to our "Book of the Week" slot, with another glorious book full of brill little details...
We love dragons, and we also rather like the fact that "Dragon Post" by Emma Yarlett celebrates the lost art of letter writing.

Meet Alex, who is one incredibly lucky little chap. You see one day Alex finds a dragon living in the cupboard under the stairs (very lucky, all we have in our under-stairs cupboard is a hoover and a bunch of dusty power tools, definitely no dragons!)

Alex is a clever and resourceful little chap, and knows just what to do.

He writes letters to lots of different people – including the fire brigade and the butcher– to ask how he should take care of his surprise visitor.

Children will love opening the five envelopes and reading the hilarious letters to Alex and then following his magical adventure with his new fiery friend.

The story of how Alex adapts to his new-found best friend is so adorably cute, and the idea of using letters as part of the story mechanic makes this book even more exciting for littlies (who might need a tiny bit of help from a grown-up or big bro / sis to extract those letters from their envelopes without damaging this gorgeous book!)

Once again Emma's amazing imagination cooks up a dragon-y tale with real heart and we utterly adored it! Perhaps it might even encourage your little ones to put pen (or crayon) to paper, and write to a beloved friend or relative! Far nicer to receive than a grotty old email!

C's best bit: The butcher's letter, which is very very funny indeed!

Daddy's favourite bit: An utterly adorable little story and a fantastic idea to have real actual envelopes within the book with real letters in them for kids to pull out and read (the solicitors' letter made me laugh a lot!) BRILLIANT stuff Emma.

"Dragon Post" by Emma Yarlett is out now, published by Walker Books (kindly supplied for review).