Our 2025 read-aloud journey continues! I found this one thanks to a list along the lines of, “If you liked The Hobbit…” We read it in one afternoon (it’s very short), and both kids give it two thumbs up.
The titular dragon has a lovely home under a pool in a river belonging to Lord of Tundergarth, a home found for him by his thoughtful mother. He is a shy, quiet dragon who eats only one bullock every 2 or 3 weeks, from the cattle grazing nearby. Because he is so gentle and unobtrusive, the Tundergarth residents consider him good luck, and generally leave him alone. When the Tundergarth dynasty ends several hundred years later, Angus Og wins the fight among the chieftains to take over the Castle at Tundergarth. Unfortunately, Angus Og is a bit of a brute. His wife Matilda, however, is lovely and thoughtful and beautiful, and a good manager too. Angus Og learns that the dragon is eating his cattle and, due to his brutishness and greed, demands that the dragon be killed — he will not share his bullocks! He hires a knight to come and do the deed, despite Matilda’s heart-wrenching pleas. Things go as planned…until they do not.
This was an excellent read-aloud. For my 9 year old, there was a lot of new vocabulary and some funny, clever word play and prose. My 7 year old loved the descriptions of Matilda and her relationship with the dragon, and she also loved the descriptions of the habits of she-dragons and he-dragons. The ending was very good (and showed the power of collective action, which I always love to see in a kids’ book!) The illustrations are wonderful – I was thinking about giving this 4 stars but the pictures are so nice, I bumped it up to 5. There were several very funny moments in which Angus Og has to deal with the repercussions of his half-baked ideas and short-sightedness, which made both children laugh out loud. There was also a surprising amount of pathos for such a short book – at one point my daughter looked absolutely stricken as Angus carried out his awful plan to kill the dragon. (Don’t worry, the dragon recovers!)
Although the tropes might seem a little well-worn — monster who is actually kind and gentle; classy woman has to use her wits to outsmart her oaf of a husband; etc. — the jaunty pace of the story and the well-written characters keep it moving right along and it never felt tired. Definitely recommend this one as a read-aloud, or read-alone, for kiddos of any age.