The Dragon and Her Boy
Reviewed By Ian Banks August 8, 2021
Author Penny Chrimes
Distributor: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 9781510107120
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Release Date: February 2021
Website: https://www.hachette.com.au
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A cataclysmic upheaval on the streets of London sees Stick, one of the child tumblers who perform to earn a few coins, fall into a tunnel under the street. Sparrow and Spud his friends, along with Mr Punch and Judy are all gone and in his frantic search, Stick comes across a dragon who has been also stuck in the tunnel; a dragon who is in none too happy about being stuck! She unlike Stick has been there a while!
From the dragon’s perspective Stick looks like he could be her next meal, even if he looks a bit too skinny, but after all she reasons, something is better than nothing. Stick thinks maybe Sparrow and Spud have been eaten by the dragon, but by the time he and the dragon get out of the tunnel, he realizes more kids than just his friends are missing!
He has the dragon with him, who is every vocal about many things. She gets shot in the foot by guards on the prowl, and as if things are not bad enough, they go on to be terrible, if not worse. One of the other street boys, Turnip-Tom, has a family who farm in the country and so they decide to go there in search of all the children who are missing. People everywhere were blaming the dragon, or dragons, for eating them all. Dragon is not too happy about this but does admit to eating a couple. She really prefers to eat crumpets!
But as the plot unfolds, it seems that Stick and the dragon have a special connection; he is the only one who can hear her speaking, others believe it is just roaring, which as it turns out, proves to be the one thing that saves him from a plot even more terrible that you could ever imagine.
In The Dragon and Her Boy, Penny Chrimes has created a fast paced romp through medieval times, old worlde English and all, knights, dragons, hero’s, villains, serious villains along with a heap of fun to return you to time when maybe dragons were for real and knights in shining armour did good deeds, well sometimes.
One final thing: as the book is written in King Billie’s English there is a dictionary for your use at the end of the book, just so you can understand what they are talking about especially when it gets a little bit tricky to say the least.