Customer Reviews

The Dragons Are Singing Tonight

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Our 4-year old loved this book. Lots of different personalities and voices. His favorite was Boom and he walks around the house pretending to be Boom. The drawings are excellent and complex enough to get our son to ask questions about why the dragon has trees growing on him, etc.

I took a chance on Jack Prelutsky's gifted poetry and read this book to my son's 2nd Grade class, instead of a run-of-the-mill story. The children were enthralled. They really longed for the world to have dragons again, real or otherwise. Never mind that some of the vocabulary was a bit sophisticated for them (My Dragon's Been Disconsolate), they wanted to hear every poem, not just those I'd selected for them. My son returns to the book to gaze at Peter Sis' whimsical illustrations and read the poetry over again every so often. I peek over his shoulder each time!

I had a soft copy for my two kids and they trashed it from use. I was thinking about it when we decided to theme the office programming area the "Dragon's Lair". So I bought two copies, one for my daughter and one for our artist. My daughter immediately remembered the book and it is now read 1-2 times a week for her. My artist draws dragons for fun so she is about as happy as my daughter!

My three year old son loves dragons, but they also scare him sometimes too. This book is one of his favorites because the poems are fun (like "Nasty little dragonsong" and "I have a dozen dragons", to name a couple) and the illustrations are not scary at all. We enjoy looking at the pictures and he loves to hear the poems. In fact, the poem called "I am boom!" the thunder dragon has made him a little less frightened of thunderstorms. We just say "There's that old boom again!" and he settles down, whenever thunder is rolling overhead. If your child is interested in dragons, this is a great edition to your library. Lovely illustrations and fun-to-read poems.

We got this book as a gift. I love the poems, and they read with a sort of happy cadence, even the ones with the more wicked lyrics. But more than anything, I really enjoy the artwork, which is reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. Very appropriate. After reading this to my kids, I like to watch them run around pretending to be fire-breathing monster dragons. Much fun.

Poems by Jack Prelutsky and pictures by Peter Sis...in my opinion it just not get much better than this. This team is one of my favorite. Each has quite a number of children's books to their credit and they just keep getting better and better.

This 1993 hard cover edition contains 17 short to medium length poems by Jack Prelutsky, all of course pertaining to and about dragons. Now you may not believe in dragons (I pity you...of course there are those that do not even believe in fairies and elves and my pity goes out to them too), but you will enjoy this one never the less. One of my favorite poems in this work is entitled "If you don't Believe in Dragons." It goes:

If you don't believe in dragons,
It is curiously true
That the dragons you disparage
Choose to not believe in you.

Each dragon poem is accompanied by a double page illustration by Peter Sis and for those of you familiar with the work of this artist; I can assure you that Sis is at his best here. He delivers a wide assortment of fantastic beasts in strange and not so strange locations and situation; the man is versatile!
Each illustration or painting is in perfect sync with the text and the text and painting enhance each other making a wonder whole world of dragons.

Once They All Believed In Dragons

Once they all believed in dragons
When the world was fresh and young.
We were woven into legends,
Tales were told and songs were sung,
We were treated with obeisance,
We were honored, we were feared,
Then one day they stopped believing -
On that day, we disappeared.

Now they say our time is over,
now they say we've lived our last,
Now we're treated with derision
Where we once ruled unsurpassed.
We must make them all remember,
In some way we must reveal
That our spirit lives forever -
We are dragons! We are real!

This work makes a wonderful read aloud book and I do highly recommend it.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Great poetry for little boys who all seem to love rather gruesome things. My favourite in this collection is "A Werewolf of Distinction"- anybody who is getting a bit old like I am, would really relate to this poor old werewolf. I laugh every time I read this - I think I could have this read at my funeral. Beautiful adventurous and inspiring use of our language.

This is a wonderful book with beautiful illustrations. When my son was a preschooler I would read this to my son at bedtime cover to cover. Now as a second grader, he is reading it himself and also used one of the poems for a poetry reading at his school.

As an adult I too enjoy the poems. They are well written with a lot of imagination. I love this book as much as my son does. If you looking for a great book about Dragons this is a must. It also makes a beautiful gift for other children. A must have for every childs library.

We have enjoyed sharing this book with all three of our girls as well as with nieces and nephews. All the children are riveted as we read these poems aloud. Nasty Dragon and Boom are a couple of their favorites. I have also purchased this for gifts and the parents always have raved how wonderful this book is. Happy reading!

This book has beautiful illustrations, clever and funny verses that delighted my grandchildren, ages 5 and 6. The author does not "talk down" to children, but challenges them to add vocabulary with his choice of word usage. So refreshing and a wonderful change from so much of what is written for children these days. I heartily recommend this book.