Dragonbreath

Danny Dragonbreath is having trouble with the whole Dragonbreath aspect of his name, in other words he hasn't yet managed to breath fire. Keep thinking hot thoughts, think about fire, his father tells him, but that isn't much use when the school bully is teasing you about your very existence. Dragons being mythical beings and all.
Added to that is the fact that you just got an F because you made up your facts for your essay on the ocean and it makes for a not great day.

Luckily Danny's mother suggests that he contact his cousin, who just happens to be a sea serpent, and that way he can learn all about the ocean. It is where cousin Edward lives after all.

I may be biased, in that I am a big Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher fan, but I thought show more that this book was just great. It is a kids book, middle-grade (whatever that means to us non-USians) level, so it isn't as dark and haunting as some of Vernon's other work. What it is though is great fun. Danny and his best friend, iguana Wendell, have adventures under the ocean and even learn a bit about deep-sea life in all its weirdness. Plus they learn a little about how to hold off a school bully.

And awesome artwork. Highly recommended when you need something light and easy to read. show less

Dragonbreath is very cute and funny, but it's also got a hint of sophistication. Danny Dragonbreath's nerdy iguana best friend, Wendell, uses some big words and lots of sarcasm in his role as the reluctant sidekick to Danny's boisterous hero. There are lots of jokes that adults will laugh at as well as children. The plot is a little like Magic School Bus in that Danny has to do a report on oceans, so he and Wendell visit his sea serpent relative for some up close and personal research. Danny also struggles to breathe his first fire and deals with the school bully, who's a Kimodo dragon.There's a mix here of chapters and comics. The two-tone art is reminiscent of Jellaby and Babymouse, but the accent color is, of course, green. First in show more a series. show less

I'll start off with how much I enjoyed certain lines from this book. Such as: Diamonds would have gone soft and runny under that glare. Great little moments like that.

This is a lovely tale of a dragon with the last name Dragonbreath who can't breathe fire, has a lot of reptiles at school -some good, some bad- and wants to get out of writing about the ocean, but ends up learning about it through hands on manners.

Not a thrilling read, but a really cute, childish, and good one. I recommend this book for young kids for sure!

I wasn't blown away by this. It's getting lots of comparisons to Babymouse, which I can sort of see, but I really wish this were told entirely in comics instead of a few pages of comics and then a bunch of prose. Vernon does some excellent sequential art storytelling (look up her webcomic epic Digger) but her prose isn't at the same quality.

It was fun, I enjoyed it, and I'll be passing it along to the children's librarian for purchase, but it didn't wow me. Alas.

Danny Dragonbreath is a dragon who, to his great frustration, cannot breathe fire (yet). But that's not his only problem - he's in hot water at school because he didn't do any research on his ocean report. Danny drags his best friend Wendell on an underwater adventure with Danny's cousin Eddie, who lives in the ocean. Using "breath mints" (to help them breathe underwater), Danny and Wendell learn a lot about the ocean and its living creatures, real and mythical, and narrowly escape danger to return home with the information Danny needs for his report.

Enjoyable, but doesn't quite match the brilliance of the Hamster Princess series (for me; every book its reader, etc.)

Dragonbreath stars Danny Dragonbreath, a young dragon who hasn't yet learned how to breathe fire, and his best friend Wendell, a green iguana. Whereas Wendell studies, does his homework, and would probably never get into trouble on his own, Danny has waited until the morning bus ride to write his science paper. He was going to ask Wendell for help, but his topic was the ocean and Wendell's was bats. Danny's science teacher isn't particularly interested in Danny's paper on “the rare and elusive snorklebat” and tells him to turn in a better paper tomorrow. Library research isn't really Danny's style, so, at his mother's suggestion, Danny visits his cousin Edward, a sea serpent. Danny drags Wendell along with him.

When my local show more entertainment store announced that it was closing for good, I spotted this on the shelves during the ensuing “going out of business” sales and decided to buy it. I had my oldest niece in mind, but I'm pretty sure it's above her current reading level. I still plan to leave it with my sister next time I visit – the kids might at least enjoy the pictures. Like Vernon's Harriet the Invincible, the book is a mixture of plain text and graphic novel-style pages with illustrations and speech bubbles.

Dragonbreath was a little more focused than Harriet the Invincible, although Danny didn't work quite as well for me as Harriet did. Harriet was fearless, smart, and brave. Danny was fearless but didn't always think before he threw himself into potentially dangerous situations. Wendell had to be the voice of caution, and even then he rarely managed to rein Danny in.

Wendell was basically me. I couldn't help but laugh at this bit: “It was one thing to bring Cousin Edward along – Edward was mythological, after all, and used to this sort of thing – but Wendell was an iguana. Epic tales of heroism and disaster were notably lacking in iguanas. His best friend just wasn't cut out for high drama.” (121) If Wendell had been the star of the story, the whole thing would have taken place in a library.

The story itself was a bit of adventure plus some fairly straightforward edutainment. Danny and Wendell learned about the bends, sea cucumber defense mechanisms (gross), jellyfish, anglerfish (one of which was correctly referred to as female), and more. Mixed in with the real-world stuff was the lost city of Atlantis and a Kraken.

In addition to their underwater adventure, Danny and Wendell also dealt with a bully. Like the rest of the book, these parts were pretty light-hearted. The fierce potato salad was great, and I really liked that it was technically Wendell who got rid of the bully the second time around.

All in all, this was pretty good. I may try the next book in the series.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

This was a charming story of a Dragon who decides he's going to enlist his cousin the sea-serpent to get a better grade in school. A mix of dialogue and art and both complement each other so well. I love her as T Kingfisher and this just was so much light fun