Books like How to Catch a Dragon
By Adam Wallace
How to Catch a Dragon has kids dreaming up their own trap the second the last one fails, chasing that dragon through lanterns and fireworks and red envelopes without ever slowing down. Your kid will want to guess the next scheme before the page turns. If that chase energy is what you're after, the books below keep it going.
Same hands-on chase energy as the dragon hunt, but I Face the Wind by Vicki Cobb sends your kid outside after something they actually can't catch: the wind.
An endlessly imaginative girl transforms into robots, trees, and countless other characters through rhyming games, while her messy room and her mother's patience wait in the background.
If the sound effects in the dragon chase were the favorite part, The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow hands your kid an entire orchestra of them.
A bright, rhyming romp through a day in the life of birds — from the rooster's dawn crow to the owl's nighttime call — inviting little ones to cheep and tweet along.
The bouncy rhyme and big dreaming carry over, though If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen slows down to build one perfect machine instead of chasing something wild.
No lanterns or fireworks here, just a cardboard box, but Christina Katerina & the Box by Patricia Lee Gauch gets the same gleeful build-it-yourself spirit as trapping a dragon with junk.
The dragon hunt runs on chase energy, and Red Light, Green Light by Anastasia Suen gives that same rush to a kid steering an entire pretend highway.
Both books turn a crowd scene into pure delight, but Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies sends bats to the ballpark instead of lanterns to the street.
A boy walks home from school and imagines wilder and wilder sights on Mulberry Street, building a story fantastic enough to tell his father.
The dragon hunt thrives on repeat lines your kid will shout back, and Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein hands them an even bigger one at bedtime.
A little Chinese boy named Fish begs his father to buy him the biggest fish-shaped kite in the shop — then a great wind called Tai Fung sweeps in and changes everything.
A lone trombone starts to play, then a trumpet joins for a duet, a French horn makes it a trio, and instruments keep arriving until a full ten-piece orchestra fills the stage.
