Chapters open with poetic whimsy, spill-over with jaunts of effective prose, get stuck to the roof of your mouth with their sprinkles of pictures, and skip around in a first-person narrative as merrily as a child through puddles in their fresh Sunday wear. Yes, yes, a run-on sentence – but this is a children’s book, so get out of bed you grump and follow along. Sing a nice little tune, too, for the Dragon Kingdom and the Wishing Stone is a happy little novel. And what is wrong with that?
The story follows a gaggle of children traveling around, trying to restore the broken pieces of the Wishing Stone, because a Dragon Queen asked them nicely to do so. Good enough reason for me. Through their journey they must face off with various dangers, and the evils that initially caused it to be sundered. Aiding them are their various abilities/powers, a scroll of riddles, and their dragon steads/friends. Also, pluckiness.
Now I should note that I handle children’s’ books a little differently than adult, or even Young Adult fiction. A junior reader typically isn’t jarred by the same things an old fogie like me might. That said, Eirich (author) and Hunt’s (illustrator) book is largely free of errors, repetition, and otherwise. There are a few issues with viewpoints – sometimes we are given descriptions that the character (especially in first person) would not be able to notice – but this doesn’t happen enough to warrant a knock. Also don’t expect anything revolutionary. There are the usual tropes one expects, but they are handled well.
All in all, I think the book is effective in what it tries to do. It is very episodic, however, and I believe this is best read broken up. Or better yet, read to a young-child over a course of a couple of weeks.
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