Everone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like

Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like

Jay Williams

illustrated by Mercer Mayer 1976

One of my favorite Mercer Mayer books. The city of Wu has been warned of a coming attack by the wild horseman of the north. The Mandarin lord decides to pray for help from the Great Cloud Dragon. But when the Cloud Dragon appears as a fat old man no one believes that he could be a dragon except for the small gatekeeper boy, Han. Because of him, the city is saved and he is rewarded. And best of all, now everyone knows what a Dragon looks like.

A Book of Dragons

Perhaps not the best bedtime book choice with pictures and tales of the ferocious creatures of myth and legend. But Charlotte picked it out and so the other night we were all in bed reading about the Hydra, Tiamat, Grendel and Fafnir. I'm surprised none of us had nightmares!

A Book of Dragons

Leonard and Hosie Baskin 1985

Each page describes a mythological dragon creature. Tolkien's Smaug is there, the Leviathan, coiled with his tail perpetually in his mouth, the Chinese Lung who makes his appearance at New Year's parades. And my favorite, the Manuscript Dragon.

Leviathan, a serpent-dragon so colossal that its coils encircle the earth, keeps its tail firmly trapped in its mouth, thus preventing the world from falling apart.

Banished from the castle, the Laidly Worm made its way to the Heugh of Spindleton, a nearby crag.  And there she lived, wreaking havoc in the countryside and devouring everything she came across.

Dragonology

Since it's the Year of the Dragon....

Dragonology

Candlewick Press 2003

We have most of the "ology" books and they're pretty fun. Dragonology was our first one and was a favorite with Madeleine for quite a while. It's all fiction, of course, but presented like a lost journal of discovery. There's even an alphabet of Dragonology that Madeleine memorized and used to write letters to her friends (or secret notes to herself that she didn't want anyone else to read). 

We even ended up buying the Dragonology board game. It's fun to play because there are tiny Dragon hunter figures and you have to collect the dragons by traveling all over the map. The winner gets to record their name and date in the provided antique looking record. This ups the competitive nature of the game because everyone wants to have their name written down for posterity! (Plus it's been really fun to get the game out and see when we last played it).