Have You Seen My Dragon?

K-Gr 2—This unique counting book will be a hit with children who love looking at finely detailed illustrations and searching for hidden items on each page. A boy has lost his dragon and asks the building doorman if he has seen him. The spread shows one large green dragon in a fancy apartment building. When the doorman answers, "No," the boy goes looking for him all throughout the city. "Maybe he got hungry and stopped for a hot dog," he thinks. But even as he buys a hot dog of his own, he doesn't see the dragon hiding and eating one himself. That's two. He passes three purple busses, but doesn't see the dragon. Four blue sailboats raise the possibility that he went for a swim in the river. And so it goes, up to 20, when the boy finds him "right where I left him," hiding on the roof near 20 red paper lanterns. The book is illustrated in pen and ink in a picture-book style that is reminiscent of the late 1950s to early 1960s. The drawings are produced in black ink only, except for the highlighted object on each page. A map on the endpapers outlines the route the boy takes throughout the city. All in all, an excellent offering.—Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA