16th January Appreciate a Dragon (Dragons Day 1)

Happy New Year! It's the Chinese Year of the Dragon and the International Year of Camelids. It's 2024!

To coincide with Appreciate a Dragon Day and in preparation for Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dragon we have planned to display dragon books in the library to start the New School Year which begins at the end of January. We have so many books featuring dragons, so over a series of blogs, I will introduce you to what is on offer for our library users. There are seven days so you will be able to make a long list of books to get from your library.

Firstly, my young students associate dragons with fairytales, knights, breathing fire and having battles, and yes the stories they choose to read do feature these kind of dragons, but there's many more to explore. There's chapter books, myths and legends, Asian folktales and dragons who are friendly. 

Are you ready to battle a dragon? This is the signage above the library display but many of the dragons in the pictures displayed above the books make the dragons look friendly, fun and not too scary because the readers who frequent my library are under eight or parents and teachers of these students who are at preschool or in Kindergarten, Grade 1 or Grade 2.

For my very young readers I would start with books such as these:

• How to Catch a Dragon by Carol Hart and Ed Eaves

• Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner

• This is Not a Fairytale  by Will Mabbit and Fred Blunt

• Me and My Dragon  by David Biedrzycki

• King Jack and the Dragon  by Peter Bently and Helen Oxenbury

• Jill &  Dragon  by Lesley Barnes

• Again!  by Emily Gravatt

• Look Out, It's a Dragon! by Jonny Lambert

• Ellie's Dragon  by Bob Graham

• Dragon Dancing by Carole Lexa Schaefer and Pierr Morgan

• George and the Dragon  and  George, the Dragon and the Princess by Chris Wormell