Kind of odd to me that a book about dragons, a mythological, made-up creature, is shelved among nonfiction. I picked this one up browsing, and felt like I was reading it in bed at night just because I was bored. Eh. Most of the illustrations are bright and lively, some looked a bit awkward with the dragon anatomy (legs). I was surprised at how many different concepts of dragons there were, from around the world, that I had never heard of. Each country has its own idea and legends about the appearance, temperament, physical characteristics and magical abilities (or not) that dragons have. These are all just mentioned in brief here, but there are also a few stories in the book (I recognized the one about Merlin as a young boy, declaring there were two warring dragons, red and white, under a tower that kept falling down during construction. This was a different version). Some of the dragon ideas are pretty intriguing, or downright weird.
There’s knuckers- from old legends in Sussex, about serpent dragons that live in deep wells called knuckerholes (another new term for me). Zmaj and other dragon iterations from Eastern Eurpoe, that are humanlike in form with a dragon shape or serpent tail from the waist down (no legs but they fly). Amaru- a South American dragon from Inca lore that’s supposed to have two heads, one of a leopard and the other of an eagle. Sometimes one head is a goat or a llama. I’d heard of multi-headed dragons before (especially the hydra), but not of ones with other animals’ heads. There’s a marsupial dragon myth from Australia (of course). And the cute little dainty fairy dragon, which this book says is the size of a hummingbird and looks like a gecko with butterfly wings- mischievous in nature- but all the examples that I found online had images of cat-sized dragons looking more like traditional European ones (long-necked with pointy-snouted heads) and were a D&D creature. Interesting.
I liked that the book also had a few pages showing examples of real-life animals that have abilities attributed to dragons. An insect that can blast caustic liquid in defense (bombardier beetle). Treasure-hoarding in the bower bird (I also thought of crows and pack rats). A ‘flying’ snake that can glide through the air, leaping from one tree to another across a distance (I’ve seen this on film, it’s very cool). And examples of winged flight without feathers- in bats and pterodactyls.
There’s also a double-page spread showing how to draw a basic dragon, step-by-step. I’m sure this book is far more appealing to kids than it was to me!
Borrowed from the public library.
