THE DRAGON TAKES A WIFE
by Walter Dean Myers & illustrated by Fiona French
It's evident from the start of this pointless intercultural hocus-pocus that Harry the lonely dragon is a real loser: in order to win a wife he must defeat a knight in battle, but Harry can't fight. When a hip black fairy named Mable Mae Jones comes to his aid you know he doesn't need any enemies, and as her magic words are on the order of "Fire, be hotter/ And hotter than that!/ Turn Harry on/ So he can burn that cat!" it's no wonder that none of them quite work. Finally she turns herself into a dragon, and though it's a toss-up whether she looks cornier in her pink-and-white fairy duds and wand or her coyly curly dragon scales, her new incarnation so inspires Harry that he defeats the knight and marries Mabel Mae. A mismatch in every respect.