First off: this is not one to get out of the library, except on a trial basis to see whether you actually want to buy it (and you probably do). Niemann covers a whole lot of ground in these thirty pages; not as much as you’re going to get from one of those teaser CD sets from Pimsleur that entice you to buy the whole (and much more expensive) ninety-disc set, but enough that it’ll be a whole lot of readings before the kiddies are matching the words to the Chinese characters in the pictures. The good thing about The Pet Dragon is that Niemann’s simple, touching story will stand up to those repeated readings. I grant you, at forty-one years old, I can only say that from the side of the parent doing the reading, but I think there is magic in this story, and the kids will eat it up. If anything, the book could have been more expansive; I’m not sure sixty-four-page picture books for the juvenile set exist (I’m going back over my kidlit reading, and the biggest I’ve come across recently is forty-eight pages), but this material could have easily been expanded to that, or longer. This makes me eagerly look forward to The Pet Dragon: The Graphic Novel. *** ½
Rating: 4 / 5