Discovery of Dragons

Rating:
Summary: What an imagination!
Review: Author/illustrator Graeme Base has created a wonderfully imaginative children's book. The book contains faux manuscripts from fictitious explorers or students of serpentology, encyclodpedic entries describing types of dragons, fantastic full-page illustrations, and scales demonstrating the size of the dragon under discussion in comparison to humans, housecats or elephants. My personal favorite is the Mongolian Screamer. My four-year-old likes the Green Draak. Both parents and children get a kick out of this fanciful "text" on dragons.

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Summary: A lavishly illustrated adult story in storybook guise.
Review: I stumbled upon this book when I was looking around in the Children's Section (yes, I do that), forthe role-playing books. Terribly annoying that they put role-playing in that same category, but ohwell, I'm not so prideful that I won't go there. And I found, much to my surprise, a similar outcast - Base's books are written with amusement and sophistication, and while they could be entertaining if read to a child, they are not children's books. This one is gorgeous, with the dragons fully rendered, amusing (and fictional) notes in reference to them from various explorers, tiny cartoons in the framing illustrating the stories involving the dragons, and maps of the world which show where the dragon comes from. Also, the dragons have a size comparison, from a man (who happens to be running away in the silhouette comparison), to an elephant. The only flaw? A jungle dragon described as a "massive beast" in the text and shown to be much larger than a man in the cartoon frame, is shown as the size of a cat on the size-comparison silhouettes. An impressive side note: Base did the artwork too! ...

Rating:
Summary: Not just for children.
Review: This book is wonderfully written as if it was true. The book is full of beautiful illustrations of ancient world dragons. It's a children's written for the parents

Rating:
Summary: a book that truley takes you soaring
Review: this book truley takes you soaring from colorful beauty to ugly beasty hag!!! 5 stars to grame base!!!