DORIN AND THE DRAGON

by Ariane Dewey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 1982

A standard, almost deliberately typical European-style fairy tale, featuring a true and resourceful hero and packed with familiar motifs both fanciful and archetypal, all worked into a trim, diverting plot. The story begins without preliminaries, thus snaring its audience: ""Long ago there was a king who had three sons. One evening he said to his sons, 'When you awake in the morning, come and tell me what you saw while you slept.'"" Because the dream of Dorin, the youngest, is not suitable, he is banished--to end up in the castle of a blind sheep-herding dragon whom Dorin adopts as his father. A magic flute found in the castle helps Dorin overcome the wicked dryads who have robbed the dragon of his eyes; and with just his wits he gets the eyes, which are magically cast in golden apples, from the dryads' fire-tending demons. Gently, then, Dorin offers the sight-restoring apples to his dragon ""father."" Dewey's pictures of these developments have both a naive and a conventional aspect, as if done by a young person whose notions of her subjects came from other old fairy tales. The dryads and demons are charming childlike conceptions, and though Dorin has no special personality, that is well in keeping with the style of such stories and the nature of their heroes, And the tone of the pictures is at one with the story, which may lack a compelling folk tale's resonance and necessity but redeems itself by being entertaining in toto and disarming in particulars.

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Greenwillow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1982

Categories: CHILDREN'S