Summary: Have You Seen My Dragon? is a very short and sweet illustrated story that follows a young boy through different parts of town as he searches for his dragon. The first page has one line of text and a banner in the corner stating '1 Dragon'. The next page suggests he stopped for hotdogs and the banner reads '2 hotdogs'. The story continues in this manner all the way through town, suggesting places he may have gone and counting items in the illustrations from 1 to 18. Eventually the boy finds his dragon on the top of a building in Chinatown, "right where I left him!" The book is great to introduce counting since the counted objects are brightly colored on each page and students will love trying to find where the dragon hides on each page.Activity: Assign students an object and a number, and give them a small dragon cut out. Students will then illustrate their own city scape with their correct number of objects and their hidden dragon pasted into the hiding place of their choice. Once all students are finished they can put the pictures in counting order and share their city-scapes as a class.Citation: Light, S. (2014). Have You Seen My Dragon? (Pg. 48) Huizhou: Candlewick Press. Age recommendation: 3+The amazing black and white illustrations (with a hint of focused color) in Have You Seen My Dragon, make this a superior counting focused picture book. The story, such as it is, is very simple, which is perfect for the young child learning his numbers. A boy is looking for his dragon in the city, and it coming up with theories for things that it's doing. Could he be eating 2 hot dogs, or climbing 5 water towers? Perhaps he's helping the delivery man deliver 7 boxes. But again, the illustrations are what make this special. They twist and turn throughout the pages, requiring the book to be flipped, and moved around. They are extremely detailed, yet attractive, encouraging children to pour over them to see what they're hiding.
What do You think about Have You Seen My Dragon? (2014)?
One of my favs of the year. Is love to see it get some Caldecott love.
—marcia
