Sandestin

November 16, 2025

Book Review: The Bakery Dragon

The Bakery Dragon is a children’s fantasy book written and illustrated by Devin Elle Kurtz. It was published in 2024 by Alfred A. Knopf (Penguin Random House is the parent company). The story is about a little dragon named Ember who, like all dragons, loves gold more than anything. Problem is, he doesn’t have a hoard of gold like the other dragons (who are much bigger and intimidating than him). While the bigger dragons can spew out fire and scare people into giving them gold, Ember can only spew out a small flame and cannot scare villagers into giving him anything. In his search for gold, he comes across a kind baker who teaches him how to bake tasty “gold,” and he learns that this tasty gold is even better when it is shared. I enjoyed the story, as well as the moral about sharing with others is much better than stealing and hoarding. The writing is good, but since this is a children’s book, I feel the biggest strength is the illustrations. The illustrations are beautiful, and Devin E...

My family and I had gone to Sandestin to go to the beach. While we were in Sandestin, we had started to feel a bit weird, as I believe we were coughing and our throats felt somewhat dry or itchy, and our eyes watered a little. My mom had asked a lady at the desk of the hotel we were staying in what was happening and she said that it was red tide, which is a “higher-than-normal concentration of a microscopic alga” (Florida Red Tide FAQs). When we went to the beach, we found some dead fish washed up on the shore. After doing some research, I found out that these fish may have died from the red tide. This is because the red tide can produce toxins that can affect the central nervous system of fish, which can cause them to die (Florida Red Tide FAQs). Though the red tide caused us some irritation, our time at the beach was still enjoyable overall, as it was fun to be at the beach. I also managed to get some beautiful shots of the ocean waves, which was one thing I really enjoyed at the beach.

Sources

“Florida Red Tide FAQs” MOTE Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, https://mote.org/news/florida-red-tide. Accessed 1 June 2020.