I recently finished reading The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Ernest H. Shephard. I think I had heard of this book before, or at least the Disney movie, but I had never gotten around to reading it until now. (I have also never watched the Disney adaptation of this book). I was browsing my local library a couple of weeks ago and stumbled upon it in the children’s section.
In the book, a dragon moves into a cave in the Downs near a village. A Boy, who is an avid reader, speaks to the dragon and finds him to be agreeable but also lazy. He warns the dragon that he should leave before the villagers decide to have him killed, but the dragon being a bit naive, decides to stay. The Boy becomes friends with the dragon. When word spreads about the dragon in the cave, the villagers ask a knight to kill him. Now the Boy must figure out a way to save the dragon and also help both the dragon and the knight come to some sort of agreement.
In this review, there will be spoilers if you haven’t read the book already.
First, I will discuss the things I didn’t enjoy so much, so that I can end the review on a positive note. The main thing I found annoying about the story was the knight’s and the Boy’s desire for a fight, albeit a staged fight, despite the dragon not wanting to fight to begin with.
The villagers always want fights for excitement, so they lied to the knight about all the bad things the dragon had done to convince him to do it. However, even when the knight is told that they are lying and he meets the kind dragon himself, he and the Boy are still keen on having a staged fight. I suspect that it was not only to satisfy the villagers, but also themselves.
I found it annoying because the dragon stated multiple times that he didn’t want to fight, even if it was a staged one. But the Boy and the knight manage to convince him to do it. The dragon later grows to enjoy the whole thing, which is fine.
One thing I noticed is that the Boy knows the villagers are much too eager for fights and that they will lie to get what they want. He seems to find their behavior disgraceful. Yet, at the same time, he is eager for the staged fight between the dragon and knight. At some point during the fight, he even asks the knight if they could make the fight longer, which doesn’t happen. So, to me at least, the boy may be slightly guilty of romanticizing fighting like the villagers are. Or perhaps it’s not so much romanticism as much as having too much of a desire for the show.
I think the knight may be a bit guilty of romanticizing fighting to a degree as well. Although he makes a speech to the villagers after the fight saying they shouldn't lie about things or romanticize war, he had wanted to create a whole narrative involving the dragon holding a princess captive. He had even asked the Boy if he could arrange it somehow. But the Boy refused because he was tired of arranging things, understandably.
I thought the whole idea was a bit silly given that they did it partially for the excitement of it all, rather than deciding it would be safer to not have a staged fight to begin with.
Though I was annoyed by this, it isn’t a flaw in the book. Rather, I think it’s just me being annoyed at well written characters who I felt should know better. It makes sense that the Boy, who is a child, would be eager for a fight, even a staged one, because he is a child who hasn’t seen anything as exciting as a dragon and knight fighting. Also, with him growing up near villagers who romanticize fighting, it makes sense that this same tendency would rub off on him a little.
Despite this, he proves to be more cool headed than the rest of the villagers, for he goes to the knight and convinces him to have a talk with the dragon before he makes the rash decision to kill him at the villagers’ behest. It is because of the Boy’s actions that the dragon's life is spared. So while he still behaves like a child, he also demonstrates maturity, perhaps even more maturity than the knight and the dragon. For those reasons, I would say the Boy is my favorite character.
Also, it’s possible that if the staged fight never happened, the villagers wouldn’t be satisfied. Even if the knight were to tell them that the dragon was good and that he should be left alone, the villagers would probably get another knight to do their bidding. So having a staged fight was most likely the only way for the Boy to save the dragon from being killed.
After reading the book, I can say I enjoyed it. If I had to give it a rating, I would probably give it four and a half stars or 9/10. Though there were times I found the characters a little annoying, mainly the knight and even at times the Boy, I think they were well written, including the dragon. The plot seemed unique, as well as the way the Boy, the knight, and the dragon managed to worked together and found a solution to their problem.
Now for the age range. I would recommend the book for ages eight and up. In the version I borrowed from the library, there weren't a lot of illustrations in the book. They were beautiful, but few, and they were black and white. If you think your child needs more pictures in their books, then there may be other versions of this story with more illustrations that are more colorful.
Have you read this book before? If so what are your thoughts on it? You can write your thought in the comments.
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