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PICTURE BOOKS
Graham, Bob

Ellie's Dragon

40 pp. | Candlewick | November, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5362-1113-9 $16.99
(2) K-3 Ellie discovers Scratch, a tiny dragon, atop a carton of eggs in the grocery store. He fits perfectly into her toddler hand. Taking him home, she cares for him tenderly, providing a matchbox bed in her dollhouse and a diet of "nasturtiums, chilis, burnt toast, and charcoal briquettes." Years go by, and girl and dragon grow up together. Scratch is a hit at birthday parties and good company at a sleepover. The sweet child-pleasing secret of the story, obvious throughout, is that adults are oblivious; they don't see Scratch at all. Inevitably and poignantly, as Ellie becomes a teenager, the two grow apart. Scratch is now too big for his corner of her room, and he longs to fly out the window. Ellie's focus shifts to her human friends. Scratch "fades." This shift is signaled by a change in style as Graham's busy cartoony pictures morph, for one spread, to a dark, quiet, impressionistic night-sky cityscape, gemmed with lights and stars. There's a bigger world out there for both of them. The setting here is signature Graham (Home in the Rain, rev. 9/17, and many others)--joyful and messy with vibrant urban street life, domestic catastrophe and clutter, parents with scruffy beards and bed-heads. A fine addition to the rich tradition of imaginary-friend literature.
Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

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