The Dragonsitter to the Rescue

Josh Lacey's The Dragonsitter to the Rescue is a funny and slightly nail-biting story in emails for 6 year olds, about a little dragon lost in London.

What happens

This is the sixth Dragonsitter book. Eddie and Emily are spending a few days in London with their dad, and Uncle Morton's dragons have come along too. Uncle Morton himself is up a mountain in Tibet, looking for the yeti.

Dad wants a day at the Natural History Museum without any dragons. So Eddie hides Arthur in his backpack. (You can probably guess how that goes.)

Arthur is as good as gold until they reach the T. rex. Then he's off, round the statues, over the tourists and out through the revolving doors.

That night Ziggy goes wild and Eddie has to let her out onto the balcony. Now BOTH dragons are missing, in a city Dad says is home to eight million people.

What follows is a very determined boy hunting all over London. He makes posters and pins them to trees. He phones the police, who aren't much help. Dad's friend Julie takes them to Chinatown, where there are dragons everywhere (just not the right ones).

Eddie feels awful about it and he says so. That's why it's so easy to root for him. He owns up, he worries, and he still can't help telling you about the free chocolates on the hotel pillows.

There are big laughs along the way. Ziggy drinks Eddie's lemonade, burps a jet of flame across the hotel room and sets off the sprinklers. The whole family end up in the car park in soaking wet pyjamas!

Later on, Eddie's emails are joined by some very official reports from grown-ups who simply refuse to believe in dragons. Your reader gets to be in on a joke the adults can't see.

It's worth knowing that a real worry runs through this one. Arthur is missing for most of the book, and Uncle Morton writes that a small dragon alone in a big city could be run over or kidnapped. Eddie blames himself. Mum and Dad also have a shouting match in the very first email (Eddie says he and Emily are used to it).

If your reader gets anxious about lost pets, or about getting lost themselves, you might like to read it together. For most children the jokes keep it light and the search is exciting rather than scary.

What to read next

If they'd like more of Eddie minding the dragons a long way from home, The Dragonsitter's Island has the whole family on Uncle Morton's Scottish island, where the farmer's sheep keep vanishing and he's sure the dragons are to blame.