Amy Shook’s Smokey the Little Dragon is perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners with its simple and cheerful plot. The worldbuilding adds interest to the tale, with dragons gaining fire power when they’re six years old and have lost their first tooth. More worldbuilding shares that dragons blow the school gates open with their fire, which is what Smokey accomplishes.
Smokey has a childlike charm in his facial expressions, colorful clothes, and Converse-style shoes. He starts out by exhaling billows of smoke. As he wishes to create flames instead of smoke, his mother tells him what must happen first.
He obtains fire power after losing a tooth and on his sixth birthday. However, he must practice controlling his fire, or fire will escape his mouth and burn everything in sight.
This book needs a few grammatical corrections, and “fire power” is interchanged with “firepower” a couple of times. A few emotions are told rather than shown, but children will embrace the story. This tale encourages kids to be patient as they wait to grow bigger before attempting new things. Smokey exudes passion and spirit in working hard to improve his fire power. He does blast the school gates open with a flaming stream. Not only that, but he also teams with other eager dragon kids, and they win a school talent show with their fiery feats.
Be sure to pick up a copy of this cute, spunky dragon’s story.
