The Dragon Hunters (The Dragon Brothers, 1)

A dragon kidnaps the brothers' dog, and so it's off to the dragon's lair to rescue the canine kidnappee. That's certainly fun, and the drawings are colorful, energetic, and clearly support the story.But what I most appreciated was the author's ambitious decision to tell the story in verse. It isn't done in a sing-song scheme, and the rhymes aren't too tortured. Here's an example: "Their mother woke and saw them gone. Said she, 'I have a hunch: they've gone to look for Coco. At least they took some lunch.'" That's an interesting rhyme, the meter is just a bit unusual, and there's even a bit of a dry joke in Mom's thought. For a younger reader this just struck me as a clever, painless and inviting introduction to narrative poetry.But putting that aside, the book works as an early reader adventure. You have a pet in danger, a rescue quest, two brothers who work well as partners, some quick thinking, and a happy ending. The drawings are very helpful for a young reader because they clearly complement and illustrate the tale. The kids are expressive, the action is clean, the colors are bright and inviting.So, a solid picture book. There's some mishigas about an Android phone app, (AR Reads), that makes the endpapers 3-D and moves the characters in an "augmented reality" fashion. I'm not sure how you might feel about diverting attention from reading to watching the story on a phone, but I'm not in love with the idea. On the other hand, this may be the picture book of the future. If you're curious there's a demo of how the app works at the Dragon Brothers book blog.So, the upshot was that this was fun and engaging, and I count it a happy find. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)