Andy Shepherd’s The Boy Who Grew Dragons is a funny, warm story for 8 year olds about a boy who finds out that dragons make brilliant, terrible pets.<\/p>\n
It all starts with Grandad wanting to grow raspberries for Nana’s jam tarts. Tomas gets roped into clearing the jungle at the far end of the garden, and under all the weeds is a very strange spiky tree. One of its fruits is glowing. So Tomas takes it home.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the night it goes POP. And there, under his beanbag, is a tiny red dragon who sneezes sparks.<\/p>\n
What follows is chaos. Tomtom the cat (who Tomas swears is half tiger) goes for the dragon, and the Lego models come down one by one. There are scorch marks up the walls. And then there’s the poo. Baby dragons poo a LOT, and when it dries out it explodes. A breakfast scene with his little sister Lolli is pure slapstick.<\/p>\n
Tomas names him Flicker, because his scales can’t settle on a colour. Hiding him from Mum and Dad is hard enough. Hiding him at school, with Liam Sawston looking for any excuse to laugh at him, is harder still. And there are six burst fruits under Grandad’s tree. So are there more dragons out there?<\/p>\n
Tomas tells it all straight to you, full of daydreams, jokes and very bad lying. It’s properly laugh-out-loud.<\/p>\n
There’s a tender side too. Tomas had an operation on his heart when he was little, and his grandparents moved close by to help. Now Grandad has a funny heart of his own, and Tomas quietly wonders if it’s his fault. It’s handled gently, and Grandad is a joy (he twinkles, apparently).<\/p>\n
If you’ve got a reader who’d give anything for a pet dragon, this is the one. They might think twice about the poo though!<\/p>\n
For another secret baby dragon who needs looking after, try The Storm Dragon, where a castle maid called Sophy finds a little purple dragon with a hurt wing in the orchard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andy Shepherd’s The Boy Who Grew Dragons is a funny, warm story for 8 year olds about a boy who finds out that dragons make brilliant, terrible pets. It all starts with Grandad wanting to grow raspberries for Nana’s jam tarts. Tomas gets roped into clearing the jungle at the far end of the garden, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12773,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9381,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Storm Dragon","lr_seo_hook":"A glowing fruit, a sneezing baby dragon and a LOT of exploding poo."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[26],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[99],"class_list":["post-8885","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-8-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-andy-shepherd"],"yoast_title":"The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A glowing fruit, a sneezing baby dragon and a LOT of exploding poo. For ages 8+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n