Title A Poor Excuse for a Dragon Series --- Author Geoffrey Hayes Illustrated By Geoffrey Hayes Publisher Random House Books - 2011 First Printing Random House Books - 2011 Category Children Warnings None Main Characters Fred, Princess Viniver, Mrs. Green, The Hooty Witch, John Little, the Giant Main Elements Dragons Website ---

Fred's roar is not scary. He wants to eat pancakes, not people. He's just not a very good dragon. Is there another job for him?

This is a tale of Fred the young dragon who wants to go out and make his own way in the world. As he leaves home his parents give him several dragon rules he should follow, like eat people, breath fire, and run amok. However Fred's roar is more like a meow, and his fire is more like birthday candles, and well, people just tend to laugh at him instead of getting scared. He tries eating them but then he just gets a tummy ache...ah, wouldn't pancakes be better?

It was a cute but silly tale, and while the art quality was good I was actually kind of weirded out by the fact all the characters are stuffed animals with buttons for noses and stitches on their bodies. I guess that was supposed to make them look cute and toy-like but I kept thinking of Coraline and actually found them creepy, Princess Viniver with her painted on smile looked expecially evil, in fact I'd rather hang out with the witch than her (just look a the cover image and her evil grin). I did like the fact it was coloured in pencils.