I had a plan when I went into my LBS; grab the four books I had gone there specifically for, pay, and get out. And then I saw this book and I couldn’t resist. I have a soft spot for dragons, and a weakness for beautiful children’s book illustrations; I didn’t even look inside. (I also picked up two greeting cards to use as bookmarks because they were hysterical, but they don’t factor much into this review. Suffice to say, a card of Isaac Newton as a newt was too good to pass up.)
The Bakery Dragon is about Ember, the little dragon that wants gold for his hoard but is far too small to scare anyone into getting it. One night during a rainstorm, he is asked to come in by the baker of the village bakery, and discovers that Tolkien is right: not all that glitters is gold, sometimes it’s just a really well baked loaf of bread.
(How can you not fall in love with a face like that?)
The art is adorable; all the characters are drawn very rounded and cheerful looking, Ember most of all. The art is very color saturated, with dark rich shadows highlighting each page. It’s not the same style, but for some reason the art slightly reminds me of Maxfield Parrish; very realistic and yet fantastical, with bright, saturated colors and solid yet dreamy linework. And I know that’ s all very contradictory, but it’s the only way I could think to describe the art. And all the baked goods are drawn with such detail, I actually got slightly hungry flipping through the book.
The story is well-written on top of the art, all about how the greatest treasure is sometimes not what we think (though you can still get it with a healthy heaping of gold). I appreciated that even though the dragons terrorize the villagers daily for any gold they have (though who makes village bells out of gold? Does no one realize that’s a soft metal and is going to get dinged out of shape fairly quickly? And where are they all getting this gold from?), the baker still takes pity on Ember being out during a deluge, and invites him into her shop. Though of course it’s not for free, and the pages showing Ember kneading bread (after washing his paws, of course; being a dragon is no excuse for poor kitchen hygiene!) are just too cute for words!
I’m really glad I picked this up on a whim, because it’s a great addition to my ever-growing hoard of children’s picture books, and doesn’t that just make me sound like a bit of a dragon myself?