There’s a Dragon in my Toilet!

Tom Nicoll's There's a Dragon in my Toilet is a very silly story for 7 year olds about a boy whose tiny dragon friend might be about to leave.

What happens

Eric is nine, and he shares his bedroom with Pan. Pan is a Mini-Dragon, small enough to hide in a pocket and fond of prawn crackers. He sleeps in Eric's sock drawer. He also plans a brilliant surprise party for Eric's mum and dad (Eric takes all the credit, of course).

But after the party Pan goes very quiet. He lies on the bed staring at the wall and won't even touch his crackers. Eric and his friends Min and Jayden check the Encyclopaedia Dragonica. Could a Mini-Dragon be homesick?

Pan hasn't seen his mum and dad for months. They live up in the mountains in China. So when Pan scorches his family's secret "dragon code" onto a scrap of paper, the children are amazed. It's an email address!

One video call later, Pan is chatting to his parents on the computer. It's funny and very sweet. Pan's mum is horrified to hear he's been eating prawn crackers instead of mountain goat. And guess whose online yoga class she's been doing to calm her nerves? Only Eric's mum's!

Then comes the bad news. Pan's parents want him back with other Mini-Dragons. They're sending Aunt Maria and Uncle Fernando to collect him, and those two are the grumpiest Mini-Dragons you could ever meet.

They arrive exactly how you'd expect from the title. Up through the toilet, in wetsuits and tiny glass helmets, with a jet of water that soaks the whole bathroom. Uncle Fernando even sings a song about everything that's wrong with humans (it doesn't rhyme, and Min tells him so).

Eric tells the story himself and he's very funny about his family. His dad plots football tactics in a room he calls Command Central. His mum teaches yoga to the whole world online. His toddler sister photographs everything, and the cat is "over-evil". Your reader will be giggling from the first page.

It isn't the first book about Eric and Pan, but Eric recaps how Pan turned up, so you can jump in here. Under all the toilet humour there's a lovely question about what home really means, and whether Pan belongs with his family or his friends.

What to read next

If they enjoy this one, go right back to There's a Dragon in my Dinner, where a takeaway box of free beansprouts arrives on Eric's doorstep one Friday night.