Perfect Picture Book Friday
When a Dragon Moves In (Flashlight Press, 2011) by Jodi Moore and illustrated by Howard McWilliam is fun book about imagination.
“If you build a perfect sandcastle, a dragon will move in.” And it will be great–a built in marshmallow toaster, a raft, and a an assist with kite flying. But there are rules on the beach, so you have to hide his smoke and erase his footprints from the sand. Then he eats all of the peanut butter sandwiches, blows bubbles in your drink, and nibbles all the brownies. Which you are blamed for. Plus he kicks sand on your sister. So, you have to tell him to leave. Until…
Read about the author here and see her books here where you’ll see there’s a sequel called When a Dragon Moves In Again.
Check out the illustrator’s many children’s picture books, children’s novels, and magazine illustrations here. You can read his bio here. He also wrote and illustrated Just SNOW Already! (Flashlight Press, 2023).
A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals( Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016) written and illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins is a hilarious laugh-out-loud picture book. I love that it has twists and more twists. It’s fun to read aloud. It’s fun to go back and look at the pictures and check out what you read, in case you missed something the first time. It’s subversive. It makes me smile each time I think about it. I’ve been sharing it with others ever since I read it.