Promise! There are no dragons in this book. Hmmmm. Every child, after seeing that dangling contradiction at the gable of the roof, will eagerly open this book and investigate for themselves. What they will find is page after page of cleverly disguised, or maybe cleverly in denial, assertions that there are no dragons.

TOENAILS?
You see toenails? No way.
Ohhh...pay no attention to those.
They probably belong to the cat.
It's a big cat...a really big cat.

They're called CLAWS, you say?
You're right.
You're very smart.
Smart enough to believe me
when I say, there are NO
dragons in this book.
Not on the next page either.

That should give you an idea of the playful and “embrace the chaos” approach the author and illustrator take. Each spread offers a different experience for the reader. First the toenails, then the flying sparks from the fire, the hole in the wall, and then something I never thought I’d see in a picture book—a voice coming from the toilet, two children peering into its depths, paired with the question, “Who made that MESS?”

That may turn out to be a very popular page…except there are other pages that also demand interaction, including shaking the book so that dragons start falling out of the gutter in the center of the spread.

Bravo! Thanks to the actions of the brave reader, there are finally dragons in this book.

Cue the request for a title change at the end.

Fun, lively, and requiring young readers to look carefully at the illustrations and interact, this book will most likely become a read aloud favorite. The illustrations, in pencil and crayon, add to the overall feeling that things in this house, the house with no dragons, are a little out of control—like most houses where many children live. I’m glad that the adults that live here seem at home with the craziness. Strangely enough, I once went to a preschool birthday party that reminded me of this book. It took me some time to recover, LOL.

Activities:

Pair this book with When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore, illustrated by Howard McWilliam.

Make an origami dragon with flapping wings or dragon claws.

Draw pictures of houses and hide a dragon (or more than one) somewhere in the drawings.

Title: There Are No Dragons in This Book

Author: Donna Lambo-Weidner

Illustrator: Carla Haslbauer

Publisher: NorthSouth, 2024

Ages: pre-K – 1st grade

Themes: dragons, observation, interactive

For more perfect picture book recommendations, please visit Susanna Hill’s website.