Get Well, Good Knight (Dutton Easy Reader)

When his three dragons return with terrible colds, Good Knight must find just the perfect cure to make them well once again, in an easy reader tale with full-color illustrations.

PreSchool-Grade 2-As in Good Night, Good Knight (Dutton, 2000), Thomas and Plecas bring engaging twists to familiar story elements for beginning readers. Here the knight finds his three little dragon friends suffering with terrible colds and the noble fellow sets off to seek a healing potion. The wizard's "scaly, snail-y soup" is too dreadful to eat and his slimy, grimy brew equally distasteful, so the knight asks his mother for help. With a "little of this and a little of that," she prepares a delicious cure. Plecas's cartoon illustrations have requisite picture clues, cheerful colors, and lots of details. Ingredients for the wizard's concoctions are printed in bold type over the steam coming from his pot. Dragons whose expressions are oh-so-miserably sick miraculously beam with health and vitality on the last page. This is a royal treat to soothe any beginning reader's blues and will inspire repeated readings.
Laura Scott, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

K-Gr. 2. In this Dutton Easy Reader, a sequel to Good Night, Good Knight (2000), the Good Knight gallops through the forest to find out who is sneezing. He soon finds a cave where three feverish little dragons lie coughing and sniffling. Answering the knight's plea for help, a wizard concocts first a "scaly snail-y soup," then a "slimy grimy soup," but neither is palatable enough to swallow. When the Good Knight's mother makes chicken soup, though, the little dragons slurp the cure down. A plot summary does little justice to a book that goes beyond good narrative structure and simple words to create a tale that is always winning and frequently funny. The subject and the appealing ink-and-watercolor illustrations will attract young readers, but a great deal of the book's charm lies in the telling. Excellent for young readers and for reading aloud to younger children who are intrigued by knights and dragons. Carolyn Phelan
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