A dragon used to live here by Annette LeBlanc Cate

It's been almost ten years since Annette LeBlanc Cate wrote and illustrated the informative and hilarious Look-up! Bird-watching in your own backyard. It's turned out to be an enduring classic for my library, included in all our bird-watching kits and regularly replaced as it's loved to pieces. I was greatly interested when I saw she had a new title coming out but I didn't know quite what to expect; with the prolific output expected of most authors today, they rarely step outside their specific genre or audience, so I was intrigued at the idea of a middle grade fantasy.

Thomas and Emily are playing around the castle while their mother is at yet another conference, when they lose an arrow and encounter a crabby, mysterious woman who just happens to let it slip that she used to know their mother... back before the dragon lived in the castle. A dragon?! Determined to hear the rest of the story, the children return again and again, making friends with feisty, grouchy Meg and her small group of quirky scribes, sharing treats, improving their penmanship, and above all listening to Meg's stories.

Meg weaves a fascinating story of a fire-breathing dragon, elves, trolls, and their mother as a young girl. Thomas and Emily are at first skeptical, finding it hard to reconcile their staid, sensible mother with the young Catherine of Meg's stories, but Emily soon believes wholeheartedly in Meg's tales, while even Thomas is drawn into the depiction of his father's heroic actions as a knight. As they listen to the story, they also pick up hints about the broken friendship between Meg and their mother, and Emily especially is determined to reunite the two friends and bring Meg back into the central life of the castle.

The story is told with a tongue-in-cheek humor, so while Emily and Thomas have archery and tapestry lessons, Thomas plans to be a knight and Meg talks about grinding rocks to make the paints for her art, Emily also yearns to wear a pointy "damsel hat" and they don Victorian-style swimsuits for a swim in the moat. Thomas hits a lot of stereotypical notes, as he decries the drawing of flowers as unfit for a knight-to-be and insists on the knights battling the dragon, but under Meg's crotchety tutelage finally admits his love of drawing a wide variety of things, including flowers. The women's long-ago quarrel hinges on a tennis game and Meg scolds Thomas for being unwilling to learn to sew, since as a knight "I'm sure there will be a lot of upkeep."

Cate's cartoons are strongly in evidence, with copious black and white illustrations sprinkled throughout the book, showing skinny-legged Thomas and Emily, their mother as a young damsel, and even the naughty dragon, breathing puffs of smoke across the pages.

The publisher proclaims this as a "perfect family read" and while I generally don't pay much attention to publisher blurbs I have to admit that this fits this quirky story perfectly. Meg's rambling story-within-a-story will make readers chuckle as she keeps coming up with new twists and turns and intrigue younger listeners as they join Thomas and Emily in trying to decide which parts of the story are true and which are Meg's inventions. The stakes are low, the jokes are witty, and this is a cozy tale for a family to enjoy together before bedtime.

Verdict: This will be perfect for those voracious readers who are too young or sensitive to tackle the more serious middle grade fantasies and will also make a great read-aloud. If you have an audience of these strong younger readers and a culture of reading aloud, this will be a good fit for your library collection.

ISBN: 9781536204513; Published April 2022 by Candlewick; Galley provided by publisher; Purchased for the library