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A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
Unavailable
A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
Unavailable
A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
Audiobook3 hours

A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans

Written by Joanne Ryder and Laurence Yep

Narrated by Susan Denaker

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Fans of How to Train Your Dragon will love this whimsical tale, the first in a series, by a Newbery Honor winner, featuring charming illustrations and pet "training tips" in each chapter.

Crusty dragon Miss Drake has a new pet human, precocious Winnie. Oddly enough, Winnie seems to think Miss Drake is her pet-a ridiculous notion!

Unknown to most of its inhabitants, the City by the Bay is home to many mysterious and fantastic creatures, hidden beneath the parks, among the clouds, and even in plain sight. And Winnie wants to draw every new creature she encounters: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But Winnie's sketchbook is not what it seems. Somehow, her sketchlings have been set loose on the city streets! It will take Winnie and Miss Drake's combined efforts to put an end to the mayhem . . . before it's too late.

This refreshing debut collaboration by Laurence Yep, a two-time Newbery Honor winner and a Laura Ingalls Wilder Award winner, and Joanne Ryder features illustrations by Mary GrandPré.     

Praise for A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
*"Warm humor, magical mishaps, and the main characters' budding mutual respect and affection combine to give this opener for a planned series a special shine." -Booklist, Starred
 
"Aternately comical, suspenseful and sometimes sweetly emotional." -Kirkus Reviews
 
"With a black-and-white spot illustration opening most chapters, an engaging narrator, and a consistently fluid writing style, this title makes a fine dragon choice for readers." -School Library Journal
 
"In this series launch, Yep and Ryder conjure up a world where dragons and humans interact, and the results are heartwarming and quite funny." -Publishers Weekly
 
"A clever and amusing novel that imagines a magical world that nestles right up against our own and sometimes crosses over." -The Bulleting of the Center for Children's Books

Praise for A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter
"Yep and Ryder keep the magic coming with their whimsical fantasy, enhanced by Grandpré's sweet drawings. The story positively vibrates with fun." -Kirkus Reviews

" Lighthearted episodes of unusual school lessons and field trips, illustrated by GrandPré's winsome spot art, are grounded by Miss Drake's more serious encounters with the goons...a gratifying development as this buoyant, fantastical series continues."-The Horn Book Review


From the Hardcover edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 10, 2015
ISBN9781101891575
Unavailable
A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
Author

Joanne Ryder

JOANNE RYDER is the author of many books for children, including EACH LIVING THING illustrated by Ashley Wolff, The Snail's Spell, Earthdance, and My Father's Hands. Ms. Ryder received The American Nature Study Society's award for her numerous books about the natural world. She lives in Pacific Grove, California.

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Reviews for A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans

Rating: 3.641304456521739 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

46 ratings8 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I just couldn't get into or follow this book. The character's voices just didn't gibe with me, and the author's world-building skills needed work. Sometimes unnecessary information was shoehorned in just to be cute, and at other times, mythical creatures with odd names were introduced, but not described sufficiently for me to imagine who or what the story was supposed to be about (and for some reason, these weren't illustrated, either). Maybe it was my frame of mind when reading, but I just couldn't focus on the story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Sweet little book with more story than I was expecting -- Ms. Drake's rambunctious new pet needs settling in, and they have a small magical adventure to make it so. I particularly like that one character is grumpy and the other is stubborn. Makes for a great friendship!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What an unexpected surprise! I had picked up a copy of A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans on a whim at #alamw15, having not one clue as to what it was about. Yesterday, I was looking for something to read, and picked this up just to check it out and ended up reading it in the one sitting. The story follows Miss Drake, a curmudgeonly dragon who has taken on a new "pet" in the form of Winnie, the grand-niece of her previous pet, Amelia (or Fluffy as Miss Drake liked to call her). Winnie is strong willed and very sure herself and at first Miss Drake finds this very discouraging and realizes she's going to have to be very assertive in training her new pet. (Of course, the question actually becomes, exactly who is the pet here?) Miss Drake, on a shopping excursion for some new tea and biscuits, also buys Winnie a new sketchbook that may be more that it appears to be, and when Winnie starts to sketch all the marvelous, magical creatures she is discovering, the sketchbook releases a magic all its own and the sketches come to life! It is up to Miss Drake and Winnie to find the sketchlings before they are discovered by both the magical and nonmagical worlds.Putting this all down, A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans sounds like a typical middle grade adventure story, but what took me completely by surprise was that the story is just as much about love, loss, and the importance of family as it is about anything else. Amidst all the magic and missteps and adventures in the story is a growing underlying theme of the importance that both friends and family can have in a person's life, where friends become family and family become friends. The conclusion is one of the most touching endings to a book that I have read in a very long time, and made me think fondly of those that I have loved and lost in my life. The connections between Miss Drake and Amelie, Winnie and her father, and eventually Miss Drake and Winnie are made so incredibly real in such a short book. Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder have crafted a beautiful and fun-filled story, and Marie GrandPré's accompanying illustrations are perfect. I would recommend this to anyone with or without a young person in their life; anyone will be able to enjoy this whimsical tale about the strength and love of families. Highly recommended.A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans is published by Crown Books for Young Readers and will be available March 10, 2015.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is an early middle grade fantasy novel and it doesn't do anything particularly new or shiny on the surface -- there's a dragon and a girl and they meet and have to try to understand one another, etc. But the way the story treats these familiar figures, and its openness about the emotional circumstances that bring the two together, make the book something fresh and, indeed, charming. This is a little story about a girl and a dragon, both of whom think the other is her new pet, both of whom have lost someone dear, and both of whom have some grief to work through. Ultimately, the story is very frank about how we feel when we lose those nearest our hearts -- and the final scene is a wonder. The young target audience will no doubt enjoy the adventure and antics as our main characters get into all kinds of magical nonsense together, but parents might note that this is a book that does more than entertain; I think that, in its own gentle way, this book actually could help children who have experienced recent loss. That it can do so without losing its charm and entertainment value is a testament to its quality.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Miss Drake's pet human Fluffy (known to other humans by the ridiculous name of 'Amelia') has recently died. Now Miss Drake must contend with her new human, a youngster named Winnie. Winnie is not nearly as biddable as Fluffy was, but Miss Drake can't help becoming fond of her, especially when a magical sketchbook causes chaos and the two must work together to save San Francisco from disaster.This book is cute and funny, and I will recommend it to dragon-loving kids. However, it doesn't measure up to books such as Dealing with Dragons, so adult fans of juvenile fantasy can probably pass on this one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very cute and fun adventure. This is on the younger side even for me and was less humorous than I'd been expecting, but I definitely recommend it for young readers but they'll probably need help with a couple longer words ;).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have a bad feeling this book my prove I have become a grown up. I had a hard time getting into the book because I found the child character, Winnie, incredibly annoying and kept getting so frustrated when Miss Drake kept giving into her inappropriately obnoxious behavior when it was so clear she shouldn't. I didn't particularly like Miss Drake much either. It wasn't until the story moved out amongst the greater magical community that I found myself getting more interested and involved. I liked the world created in this book, I liked the magical system and community and I appreciated how it handled the idea of loss and acceptance of that loss even if it didn't quite resonate with me. The illustrations were a nice addition, though I did find myself, unrealistically wishing they were in color or gilded like an old illuminated tome. Overall I found this to be a mildly amusing, mostly harmless book that could have been better.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A novella that warms the heart. Dragon or human, who is really who's pet?

    While grieving for her lost pet, the wonderfully voiced Miss Drake finds that her pet, Fluffy, had planned ahead in ways she never suspected.