The Boy Who Grew Dragons: fun, fast paced and (not so) firey!

“When Tomas discovers a strange old tree at the bottom of his grandad’s garden, he doesn’t think much of it. But he takes the funny fruit from the tree back into the house – and gets the shock and delight of his life when a tiny dragon hatches! The tree is a dragonfruit tree, and Tomas has got his very own dragon, Flicker… Tomas soon finds out that life with Flicker is great fun, but also very… unpredictable. Yes, dragons are wonderful, but they also set fire to your toothbruth and leave your pants hanging from the TV aerial. Tomas has to learn how to look after Flicker – and quickly. And then something extraordinary happens – more dragonfruits appear on the tree. Tomas is officially growing dragons…”

Imagine that! Having your own pet dragon. What more could be better? I mean me as an adult thinks that’s amazing, so I can’t imagine how excited a child would be. But also, pretty scary? I don’t know that much about dragons apart from the fact they sometimes breathe fire and that they love collecting gold (you can thank Smaug for that reference!). 

The Boy Who Grew Dragons is a fun and friendly tale of a young boy who comes across a weird and wonderful plant growing in his grandad’s garden… and obviously, when the fruit comes off the tree, he just suspects that it is a fruit. But when it explodes and it has in it a dragon, his mind is BLOWN. He has this big secret to keep and he ends up having to stop helping his grandad do the garden and hides the secret from his friends in order to protect his dragon.

Obviously, there’s the school bully who just will NOT leave Tomas alone. Poor Tomas, having to deal with this dragon and this bully. The bully is mean and calls Tomas all sorts of names. But Tomas has his trusty friends who stand by him to feed him toffees (to help him stay quiet) or to support him in his times of need. 

I really enjoyed this book. It’s full of fun and lots of laughter – what’s funnier than exploding dragon poo all over your room? Landing in your teacher’s coffee? There’s also the really touching relationship that Tomas has with his little sister which made me really happy too (as a little sister, I think their relationship is brilliant, my big brother is definitely as much a hero as Tomas is to Lottie). 

I can’t wait to put this in the hands of my kids, so watch out for their reviews to be added to this soon!

Thank you so much to Andy Shepherd and the publishers for sending me this copy, it will sit beautifully in the school library and I can’t wait to read the next one and see what the kids are up to!

Would you like a pet dragon?
Would you be too scared of exploding poo everywhere?
What’s your ideal mythical pet?

Let me know in the comments, or on twitter. I’d love to know the weird and wonderful pets you’d all like!

S x