The Basque Dragon

Adam Gidwitz's The Basque Dragon is a monster rescue adventure for 7 year olds about two children, a missing dragon, and a teacher who should not be allowed near an aeroplane.

What happens

Elliot Eisner opens his front door, trips over a package and lands flat on his face. Inside the package is a book about the Basque Country. No stamp, no address, just his name written in brown ink.

Elliot has had a strange week. He's new in town, he's made exactly one friend, and yesterday the two of them rescued a creature that isn't supposed to exist and got recruited into a secret society by the most frightening teacher in the school.

The friend is Uchenna Devereaux, who dresses like a punk, makes up songs about whatever's in front of her, and has what Elliot calls a strong desire to put them both in mortal danger. She thinks he's smart and funny. He thinks her positivity is disgusting. They're a brilliant double act.

Professor Fauna needs them because a herensuge has gone missing. That's the dragon the Basque people have stories about, and yes, it's the fire-breathing sort.

His plan involves the aeroplane he keeps in the staff car park.

This is very funny. Caught inventing a cover story in front of a canteen full of children, Professor Fauna comes up with the Worm-Nutrition Club and then keeps going, at length, about exactly what worms like to eat. His office is behind a door marked Janitorial Supplies with five deadbolts on it. Jersey, the small blue creature they rescued last time, turns invisible when he's frightened and spends the flight clinging to the ceiling by his legs.

Underneath the daftness there's a surprising amount of real material. Elliot reads the book he's been sent and relays actual facts about the Basque people, their mountains and their language, which is related to no other language on earth. It never turns into homework, mostly because Uchenna gets bored and says so.

Nothing here needs a warning. The danger is cartoon danger and the aeroplane is the frightening part.

It's American, so your reader will meet a school canteen full of kids and a boy who has soccer after school. Nothing that'll slow anybody down.

This is the second adventure and the first one happened yesterday, so the book catches you up as it goes. Starting here is absolutely fine.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who wants another one straight away, Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot picks the pair up again. It opens with Uchenna staring round her classroom knowing something is wrong, and working out that the missing thing is Elliot.