How to Catch a Dragon

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Ultimately, despite the protagonist’s failure to catch the dragon, it is being within the embrace of a loving family (depicted as a mother and a grandmother) that is the luckiest of all. With adventure around every corner, and core values of friendship, kindness and imaginative play, the Albie stories make great bedtime stories and support early years education too!

I was given an advance copy through NetGalley in a document form and did have some issues viewing the text but the overall effect of the story was very enjoyable, I know that there is a Mandarin translation in the back of the book but had a hard time navigating through this section. There's inconsistency in the character naming (Sir Cuthbert Clinkety-Clank is alternately referred to as Sir Cuthbert or Sir Clinkety-Clank with no apparent logic behind the choice, which could be confusing for younger readers), and, most frustratingly of all for parents whose children are beginning to learn to read and spell, one character speaks (and is written with) colloquial dialect. The kids can join in with parts once it’s been read before and can add lots of extra ideas using the illustrations! There's more to good hymnal quatrains than simply rhyming the last word of the second and fourth lines. I wasn’t super impressed by that at first, but then I saw in the back that the text is again provided in English, Pinyin, and Mandarin (I think…it could be Cantonese) side by side, and I’m suspecting that to make the side-by-side translation work they had to occasionally sacrifice some rhythm.Andy began his career in illustration in 2003, after spending fifteen years working as a graphic designer in the computer games industry. I received a free copy of this title from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This was my first introduction to the How to Catch kids and I am finding myself wanting to read more for this series.

I'm not understanding why this Chinese New Year seems to be set in the past, a pre-technology kind of feel surrounds the whole book, which wouldn't really be a problem if they book didn't include a whole bunch of characters of different diversities. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range. Despite a series of cleverly planned traps, the children never manage to catch the dragon they were hunting.How to Catch a Dragon opens with a boy, his mother, and his grandmother preparing for Chinese New Year. When Albie visits the library to find a book about dragons, he certainly doesn’t expect to meet a real knight and his horse!