From Publishers Weekly
Shepard's pristine ink illustrations adorn this 1938 edition of Grahame's story. Ages 8-11.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5-This now-classic tale was originally published in 1898 as part of Kenneth Grahame's semiautobiographical short story collection, "Dream Days." A shepherd discovers a dragon living in a cave. His son knows from his reading of natural history and fairy tales that some dragons are reasonable and nonthreatening. He approaches the creature, who proves to be a gentle, noncombative sort. The villagers, however, see him as a menace, and St. George is sent for. The boy is able to convince him that this is a good dragon, and the three devise a plan that will give everyone a fine show and allow the dragon to stay on in the village, writing poetry and singing. San Souci's abridgment has the usual gains and losses of such a process. Much of Grahame's wit and unique style have gone by the wayside, but the text is more accessible to a modern audience. The message of compassion, loyalty, and friendship still shines through. Segal's pastel illustrations, frequently set in miniature boxes in a vertical line, sometimes ignore descriptions as provided by the text. The dragon has "blue scales on top and green below." Segal's dragon is green on top, yellow below and without a scale to be seen. The pictures are captioned with an odd mix of print and script that will be difficult for children to decipher. Libraries owning the original text with illustrations by either Ernest H. Shepard or Michael Hague may consider this version an additional purchase.
Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
