When a Dragon Moves In by Moore and McWilliam

When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore

Illustrated by Howard McWilliam

Copyright 2011

Flashlight Press/Ages 4-8

32 pages

If you build a perfect sandcastle,

a dragon will move in.

He'll settle in all cozy

and peep at you from inside . . .

. . . and you'll wonder how you ever got so lucky.

When a little boy spends a day at the beach and builds a beautiful sandcastle, a dragon moves in. The dragon toasts marshmallows, holds up the little boy's kites, scares bullies away. He roars (like the sound of the ocean), has sharp teeth (like broken shells) and eats a little too much of the family's food. As you read When a Dragon Moves In, you are clearly shown that the dragon is simply a figment of the little boy's imagination. His father lounges on the beach and chases away the bullies, mother reads her book and hears the sound of the ocean, not a roar.

What a beautiful, imaginative, perfect picture book for preschoolers! I love the way the illustrator's cheerful paintings make it plain that the dragon isn't real and it's okay for youngsters to pretend -- but careful what you try to slip past the rest of the family. Blaming your misdeeds on an imaginary friend only goes so far!

Highly recommended for little ones and new readers. My thanks to Flashlight Press for the review copy!

In other news:

Gosh. I'm having a little trouble getting back into the swing of things. Huzzybuns put down about 3/4 of the office floor while I was away and I've spent the last three days catching up on laundry, moving books from cabinets that need to be moved, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Oh, yes -- and editing Charleston photos. Too many! Did I tell you I took about 2,000 photos? Eeks.

Anyway, back to the flooring. I'm going to have to move the computer and the desk has developed a little paper entropy (piles, piles, where do they come from?) so first I have to tidy that. I think, since I have over a week till my tour and only one more book finished, I'll go ahead and write a little about Charleston is Burning! then just show up when I find the time. As I've said before, posting is going to have to be very sporadic, this summer, and blog-hopping is just a, "When I can get to it," thing. There's a lot of not-getting-to-it going on. Things should settle down in the fall. I hope.

Want to see a photo of three chicks on a Charleston adventure? Here you go:

Left to right: Bookfool, Care and Cindi. That's not a great shot of Care, so I'll share one I think is much better with you. In this shot, Care's wearing the dress I kept telling her she ought to buy! Doesn't she look cute?

Gotta go clean, clean, clean. Happy day!

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.