Dragon Was Terrible by Kelly Dipucchio (review)

Even worse than a regular bully is a dragon bully, and this titular fellow is a textbook case: he spits on cupcakes (“Who does that?! Dragon, that’s who”), TPs the local castle, and even steals candy from baby unicorns (“Honestly, that’s terrible”). The fed-up king offers a reward to anyone who can reform the beast, and both stalwart knights and common townsfolk try and fail—until one young man creates a book about a brave dragon and slyly proceeds to read it aloud within earshot of the real dragon. The intrigued dragon eventually allows the boy, and the story, to tame him. The humorous, slightly tongue-in-cheek narration is enjoyable, and the lengthy litany of the dragon’s bad behavior is humorous. That behavior is also amusingly depicted in Pizzoli’s comically cartoonish illustrations; clever visual details add to the fun, and the mustard-colored dragon stays sassy instead of scary thanks to his big, poochy tummy, snaggle teeth, and rounded, Big Bird-like feet. Muted golds, greens, browns, and reds and the simple, stylized figures and landscapes evoke the retro classic feel of Jack Kent’s work while the thick, slightly smudgy black outlines suggest coloring book pages. Use this to introduce a discussion of the power of stories, share it as part of a dragon-themed storytime, or pair it with Sendak’s Pierre for a story session gleefully devoted to naughtiness.