How to Draw a Dragon

In this ode to creativity and imagination, dragons act as models for the book's young artists. The rhyming direct-address text is encouraging ("Drawing dragons isn't hard..."), occasionally instructive ("Draw your dragon's pointed spines / using lots of jagged lines"), and mostly tongue-in-cheek, with childlike logic and silly humor. Florian's glorious bold-hued mixed-media illustrations are childlike but with a seasoned artist's use of perspective and depth.

Florian speaks to dragon-loving children everywhere in this ode to creativity, imagination, and fire-breathers. Dragons act as models for the book's budding young artists, and the story ends at an elementary-school art show with all the muses receiving their place in the sun. The rhyming direct-address text is encouraging ("Drawing dragons isn't hard…") and occasionally instructive ("Draw your dragon's pointed spines / using lots of jagged lines"). Most often it has a sort of non-sequitur logic: "Dragons have large, knobby knees. / And it rains when dragons sneeze!" When it comes to Florian's glorious illustrations, childlike is an understatement. Each spread, done in bold-hued mixed media, looks like it was dashed off by an amateur; at first glance you can easily see the outside-the-lines crayons, broad brushstrokes, and ragged edges of cut paper. But it takes precision to be this messy, and closer inspection reveals bits of collage materials (e.g., patterns of birds, insects, and butterflies throughout), along with a use of perspective and depth that points to the work of a seasoned artist. The penciled-up endpapers showing various dragon parts also look like a kid drew them, and a kid could use them to draw his or her own mythological beast -- all without once being told, specifically, how. elissa gershowitz