Granny's Dragon
PreSchool-Grade 1—A nameless narrator is sleeping over at her grandmother's house, and she's almost certain that there's a huge monster in her room. But Granny has a solution for every "what if," the penultimate one being that her "large but good-hearted dragon" can "go invisible" and protect the little girl from any monster. The humorous dialogue, while unremarkable, is effective and likely to appeal to children. The real star here, though, is the artwork. The monster is distinctly monstrous without being overly scary. Moore uses saturated colors and includes full-bleed spreads, single-page pictures, spot art, and insets. In one of the most effective illustrations, Granny and the little girl appear in an inset on a spread of the dragon while the grandmother describes the creature. A couple of wordless spreads speak for themselves. McCourt and Moore imbue the book with their trademark humor. Libraries with fans of their earlier work, and those in need of reassuring monster-banishing stories, may want to add this title.—Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CTCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.