The Dragonsitter’s Castle

Josh Lacey's The Dragonsitter's Castle is a very short book for 6 year olds told entirely in emails, most of them from a boy who has been left in charge of two dragons.

What happens

Eddie's Uncle Morton lives on a Scottish island with a dragon called Ziggy and her baby, Arthur. On Boxing Day the pair turn up on Eddie's patio, cold and sorry for themselves, with no uncle anywhere in sight.

Eddie emails. No reply. The phone makes a funny noise. Meanwhile the dragons clear out the fridge, then the cupboard, then the remote control and three spoons.

Mum's answer is that Uncle Morton can come and collect them before Thursday, because she's off on a yoga retreat and she has earned it (after the year she's had, she says).

Which is how two dragons end up in a car to Wales, and then in a freezing turret in Dad's new castle, complete with moat, half a drawbridge and a rusty cannon by the front door.

Then Ziggy catches a cold. When she sneezes, small jets of fire come out of her nostrils.

Every page is an email, with a subject line and a list of attachments you never see. Please read this! Eviction. Unhappy New Year. Half the comedy is in those subject lines, and the rest is Eddie reporting total disaster in a completely level voice.

Your reader will be ahead of him constantly, which is the best feeling a young reader can have.

It really is short. Read aloud it goes in two sittings, and a child just managing books alone can finish it solo and feel enormous about it.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Eddie's parents are divorced and do a fair bit of shouting. Dad's girlfriend walks out. And there's a stretch near the end where a fire takes hold with the children upstairs, they can't get down, and Emily's lips have gone blue by the time they're found. It's handled lightly and it resolves, but the fright is real if your reader takes things to heart.

One oddity. The text stocked here has been Americanised, so Eddie says Mom and eats cookies while standing in a Welsh castle.

What to read next

If the dragons are the draw, The Dragonsitter's Island has Eddie looking after them on Uncle Morton's island instead, where the local sheep are going missing and something is moving in the loch.