The Boy Who Lived with Dragons

Andy Shepherd's The Boy Who Lived with Dragons is a funny, fiery story for 8 year olds about what really happens once there's a dragon living in your pocket.

What happens

Tomas has a tiny dragon called Flicker, which hatched from a fruit on a peculiar tree in Grandad's back garden. His best mate Ted has one too, and so do the twins, Kat and Kai. So far, so magical.

The trouble is living with them. Ted's dragon, Sunny, eats everything in sight, burps fire and likes to wear Ted's pants as armour. (Dragon poo also explodes when it dries out. Ted finds this out the hard way.)

Who wouldn't want a pocket-sized dragon? Well, maybe not the school cook. The friends hide the dragons in the art cupboard for one morning. By lunchtime there are rainbow footprints everywhere, an iced-over kitchen counter and a dragon burrowing through a tray of mashed potato. Kat saves the day by pretending to be terrified of a mutant pigeon.

It's one mishap after another, and it's very, VERY funny. Tomas tells it himself and chats straight to your reader, as if they're in on the secret too. Ted's endless world-record facts are a lovely running joke.

Underneath the chaos there's plenty to care about. Tomas hates fibbing to his grandad, who he used to tell everything. The dragon-fruit tree is looking droopy. And Liam, the boy they call the King of Trouble, keeps turning up in a state and behaving very oddly.

The family scenes are brilliant too. Mum's a vet who brings her patients home (this week it's two ferrets and a cockatoo). Dad lives in his headphones. Little sister Lolli, who's desperate for a dragon of her own, plants a pineapple in a mud pile in the middle of the lounge.

If your reader loves magic turning up in an ordinary house, with a good dose of toilet humour along the way, this is a winner.

What to read next

It carries straight on from The Boy Who Grew Dragons, so do start there if you can. If they're after another secret animal the grown-ups somehow never notice, try Emma Barnes's Wolfie. Lucie's uncle gives her a "dog" that's very obviously a wolf, and the boy next door is determined to prove it.