Kirkus Reviews QR Code
GET WELL, GOOD KNIGHT by Shelley Moore Thomas

GET WELL, GOOD KNIGHT

by Shelley Moore Thomas & illustrated by Jennifer Plecas

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46914-1
Publisher: Dutton

Ah-choo! The three little dragons are sick and the Good Knight (Good Night, Good Knight, 1999) once again comes to the rescue. While riding through the forest, keeping watch over everything and everyone, the Good Knight hears a sneeze. He finds his dragon friends in their cave, hot with fever, noses running, and teeth “chat-chat-chattering.” He visits the old wizard for a concoction that will cure the sick dragons. These little dragons are sick, but they are not sick enough to scarf down a nasty soup made of fish scales, old snails, fingernails, and lizard tails. Undaunted, our hero turns repeatedly to the wizard, who comes up with revolting concoctions that the sick but discerning dragons repeatedly reject. Finally, our Good Knight turns to the person he should have turned to in the first place—his mother. She throws in a little of this and a little of that and comes up with something that makes them slurp the soup until every drop is gone. Plecas’s endearing, whimsical illustrations record every detail, from the hero’s greenish cheeks and pale extended tongue spitting out some slimy concoction to the exhausted droopy dragon eyelids. Repeated phrases and familiar, amusing situations are the recipe for a tale that will not lose its flavor when read over and over. Emerging readers will read this one again and again, every delicious word. Long live the Good Knight! (Easy reader. 4-8)