Dear Dragon: A Pen Pal Tale

When Blaise and George are assigned to one another in a school pen-pal project, neither is aware of the other's identity. George Slair imagines that Blaise Dragomir is a human boy like himself, while Blaise thinks that George is a dragon. As the two correspond, they become better and better friends, eventually deciding to continue writing to one another even when the school assignment ends. But when their respective schools arrange a pen pal picnic, and they discover just who they've been writing to, will their friendship survive...?

A sweet tale of unfolding friendship - friendship that eventually allows two young boys to look past their superficial differences, and realize their essential similarities - is paired with cute show more illustrations in Dear Dragon. The artwork, done in watercolor, ink and graphite, highlights the misconceptions that the boys have throughout the tale, as each two-page spread depicts one of them reading a letter and imagining what is being described therein on one page, while the reality is shown on the facing page. This lets the reader/listener in on the secret well before the characters themselves discover it, something children usually enjoy. That sense of being "in the know," together with the appealing artwork and the entertaining rhyming text will make this an appealing read-aloud selection. Recommended to anyone looking for fun children's books about dragons, or friendship across cultural/identity/racial lines. show less

Dear Dragon is a fun and engaging story about two students who were assigned to each other as pen pals. They have to write letters to each other and the content has to rhyme but not in any particular way. I love how the characteristics of the human and the dragon are opposite of what one would think which makes for a great surprise at the end. This story also recognizes differences and how people can be brought together by them.

I loved this book for many different reasons. This book is a light hearted story of a child that has a pen pal with another child. I love that the teachers make the students write in rhyming patterns so they are able to start using different forms of writing. This allows the students reading to understand what a rhyme is without being given a formal definition. This book also indirectly teaches students how to write letters to one another adding the date, a greeting, the body, a closing, and a signature. I also love the illustrations that were showing what was in each students head as we could see what the human and the dragon was thing thinking. The reader was able to predict that the two students were going to meet and they would show more notice that the events they were talking to each other about were not the same as they were thinking based upon how they looked. This was a cute way for students to realize there are children they can talk to are just like them only looking a bit different. I would use this as an introduction and allow my students to have pen pals between classrooms or even different countries. show less

I absolutely loved this book! I love how the book can be classified as both a picture and poetry book. The book starts off as a picture book until the teacher says the poetry and pen pal unit get combined, the book then turns into poetry because all the letters have to rhyme. I really enjoyed the illustrations in this book. The illustrations really added to the book The letters back and forth were funny, but the illustrations that go along with each letter make for an even better laugh. On one side of the page is the letter and the illustration from one person, the other is the person receiving the letter and how they're interpreting the letter. On one page the letter talked about a Bengal kitten, the person on the other page show more interpreted it as a lion! The "big message" is no matter how different you are, you can still be friends. The two characters in the story had no idea one was a human and one was a human, but they still turned out to be friends. show less

Dear Dragon is about two different schools that assigned students to each other to be pen pals for the year. Blaise and George are assigned to each other and they write poetry back and forth telling one another what they been doing the past couple of weeks, asking questions as well. Throughout the whole year they continue writing and become really great friends. They are excited for the pen pal picnic in June so they can finally meet. The most shocking moment of the book was when they showed up for the picnic and finally saw who they've been writing for the past school year. George was shocked to see his pen pal was a dragon and Blaise was shocked to see his pen pal was a human. At first, I thought this was going to end bad because they show more didn't look happy but then you turn the page to see they didn't care. They still were friends and they ran off to play! The teacher were happy their plan worked and they will be doing it next year. I liked how this book looked past differences and it shows anyone could be friends. The illustrations in this book are great and very creative too. I would love to share this book with my students in the future! show less

Such a cute book. Two people have a class assignment to write a letter to a new pen pal in poetry form. What is neat about this book is the side by side pictures. So if Blaise is reading a letter from George, you have one side that shows what Blaise is thinking, and one side that shows what George meant. Only towards the end do they know one is human and one is dragon. This was a neat way to tell a story. Lots of fun.

Josh Funk is such an amazing children book writer, and this book shows it. This book takes kids through a personal writing adventure, and it show cases how even though you might be very far from kids in other countries, that might not look like you, all kids are going through similar experiences. I would love to use this book in my class to introduce a Pen Pal activity once my students are comfortable with personal writing, and writing letters.