Saturday 12 July 2014

Dragon Gold by Shoo Rayner, reviewed by Cavan Scott

Harri has a problem. Every time the school runs a competition, his friend Ryan wins. Why? Because Ryan's dad always does the work for him.

So when Harri's teacher sets a challenge to create a flying dragon for St. David's Day, he sets out to beat Ryan no-matter what. He starts sketching designs immediately - and then a real-life witch walks into his mum's shop. She gives Harri a magic egg, that contains a real life dragon!

Shoo Rayner's delightful story of school rivalry and welsh mythology is the first publication from new independent Firefly Press. It's funny, engaging and feels very of the minute. There's also a healthy dollop of Welsh folklore, largely delivered by Harri's teacher and yet avoids any sense of being an infodump thanks to likeable characters and a good sense of humour.

The story is helped along by Shoo's own lively illustrations, including handy little portraits of the POV character whenever the narrative shifts from one viewpoint to the other.

My only gripe would be that Harri's adventures with his new fiery pet end rather abruptly. I can only hope that this means we haven't seen the end of Harri and Tan the red dragon.

Reviewed by Cavan Scott

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks Cavan it looks like an interesting book from your description

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