Behold...the Dragons!

From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 4-Gibbons begins with a discussion of how early humans created imaginary beasts to explain natural phenomena. She credits "dracontologists" with classifying folkloric and literary dragons and describes each of the five types in a few brief paragraphs. She retells some of the most famous tales involving these creatures, including those of Marduk and Tiamat of ancient Mesopotamia; Hercules and the Hydra; Beowulf and St. George and their dragons; and Quetzalcoatl, the dragon god of the Aztecs. A final page introduces seven related creatures ranging from Draco, the star constellation, to the Komodo dragon, a living reptile from Indonesia. Gibbons's dragons are boisterous and impressive, but not frightening. Drawn in bold black ink and washed in rich colors and textures, these ebullient beasts are barely restrained by the skewed portals in abstracted stone and earth colors that frame the pictures. Karl Shuker's Dragons (S & S, 1995) is a similar catalog for older readers, describing the same five classes and individual dragons in much greater detail. Both Demi's Dragons & Fantastic Creatures (Holt, 1995) and Graeme Base's The Discovery of Dragons (Abrams, 1996) rely more on the authors' imaginations than folklore. Gibbons's book entertains readers as it teaches them something about history and literature, and proves "What mysterious and changeable beasts they [the dragons] were."-Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, P.