The Loathsome Dragon - Hardcover

David Wiesner is internationally renowned for his visual storytelling and has won the Caldecott Medal three times—for Tuesday, The Three Pigs, and Flotsam—the second person in history to do so. He is also the recipient of three Caldecott Honors, for Free Fall, Sector 7, and Mr. Wuffles. He lives near Philadelphia with his family. www.hmhbooks.com/wiesner 

Kindergarten-Grade 3–Wiesner and Kahng's 1987 retelling of a retelling of an English folktale based on an 18th-century ballad has been revised with a briefer, more accessible text, some reworked illustrations, a new cover, and an added source note. With her brother Richard (Childe Wynd in the earlier version) gone to see the world, Princess Margaret is left to console her widowed father until his remarriage to a beautiful enchantress. Consumed by jealousy, the new queen turns Margaret into a Loathsome Dragon that terrorizes the kingdom. With advice from a mighty wizard, the people keep the dragon's hunger under control and send a message to Prince Richard to return as only he can break the spell. Despite the queen's attempt to foil this plan, Richard manages to reverse the enchantment, freeing Margaret and turning the queen into a Loathsome Toad by means of a magic rowan twig. The artwork in this version is more vivid, and the softly colored and patterned frames have been replaced with white borders that make the pictures less remote. As in the original, the dragon seems intentionally benign rather than loathsome, suggesting the trapped princess within. The uncomplicated telling and appealing double-page paintings make this a good introduction to the folk genre.–Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY
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