This seems to have been written quite a long time after the other three that belong to this series, and it's quite different. I'm not sure I buy the idea of a dragon that lives in the water and moors himself up next to boats.
But it's a sweet story, featuring a dragon who gets grumpy when he's hungry, on his holiday (from Cornwall) in Weymouth.For those of you not familiar with this series, it starts with Green Smoke in which R. Dragon meets a little girl who is on holiday in Cornwall. He tells her stories, and they're both sad at the end of the holiday when she goes home to St. Albans.
The Dragon's Quest is the next holiday, and it is set in Tintagel castle at the time of King Arthur and mostly involves the Dragon telling stories.
The third of the, at the time, trilogy, Dragon in Danger, is set in St. Albans after the Dragon helped a removal van in difficulties and the removal men took him to St. Albans by way of thank you.
Each of the books is aimed at an audience aged about eight so they're not challenging to anyone over that age, but they are rather sweet stories and as a young girl I absolutely loved them. Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of my control, all the books I had as a girl are no longer with me (sniff, sniff) but it wasn't until the advent of Amazon and my membership of h2g2 (and the book discussions I had with my friend Mr Prophet) that I decided to try and trace them. One by one I got the first three, all second hand - which is what I wanted, but would have been my only choice anyway as they are all, sadly, out of print now - and then it became clear to me that there was a fourth.*
The first three are written in a very gentle way, and although R. Dragon gets grumpy and cross at times - usually when he's hungry - in this one he seemed a lot more grumpy. Or maybe that's just how he seemed to me. Also, he spent a lot of time sleeping in the water, moored next to the boats. Now the first three books never mention that the dragon likes to spend so much time in the water, so it jars a little. But only a little.
On the whole I enjoyed reading the story, but I was quite glad when it was over. If I ever read the dragon books again it will be as a trilogy and this one will stay on the shelf. So all in all, I can't recommend it unless you've read the others and have a burning desire to complete the set (my reason).
But everyone, especially those with children, should read the others . They are totally fabby. And marvy.
*and having finished Dragon in the Harbour it appears that Rosemary Manning wrote five books for children so the search is on for the last one...
4 comments:
I'm surprised it's not on Amazon. Just about every book I've wanted to read has turned up on Amazon sooner or later - keep looking!
yep, I look every now and then and if I find it, I'll get it.
She also wrote a kids book called 'The Rocking Horse' - not in the Dragon series as far as I know. There may have also been a couple of other kids books, but more reference types than stories - 'Heraldry' and 'Railways and Railwaymen' - I'm not 100% sure if this is the samw Rosemary Manning or not, but the timeframe would be right.
Good luck with the search!
Oh thanks! I'll have a look out for those. Mostly I think she wrote in the feminist genre, though.
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