Sleeping Dragons All Around

A hilarious rhyming poem on how to befriend cranky dragons.

In this classic children's book, a girl wakes up in the middle of the night and wants some cake. But to reach the refrigerator, she has to tiptoe past a host of sleeping dragons, like Priscilla in her pink pantaloons, the punk rock dragon Fagan with spiky green hair, and Beelzebub (who sleeps in the tub). When she stubs her toe, the dragons wake up, and she has to think fast to befriend the dragons. An award-winning bestseller first published in 1989, Sleeping Dragons All Around is back to spark the imaginations of a whole new generation. Sheree Fitch's celebrated lipslippery poetry and Michele Nidenoff's colourful illustrations combine to make one of the most delightful children's books ever published in Canada. Sheree Fitch has read this book to audiences from sea to sea to sea in Canada, in the Himalayas, and along the eastern coast of Africa. Her first two books, Toes in My Nose and Sleeping Dragons All Around, launched her career as a poet, rhymster, and a "kind of Canadian female Dr. Seuss." Fitch has won almost every major award for Canadian children's literature since then, including the 2000 Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work Inspirational to Canadian Children. She has over twenty-five books to her credit. Fitch's home base is the east coast of Canada. She dances with dragons daily. Michelle Nidenoff's illustrations have been featured in magazines and children's books, including The Canadian Children's Treasury. Among her credits is a bronze award from the Broadcast Design Association in Ontario. She lives in Toronto.

The story begins with seven college students and a professor gathering to play a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Little do they know that the professor will magically teleport the seven students to the very world the game takes place in, and they will possess the bodies and minds of the characters they played as.

A tongue-twisting poem about purple people on a purple planet.

Odo and Eleanor are excited to be knights. Only ... they're stuck at home waiting for something bigger to come along. That 'something bigger' comes to them in the form of an old man named Egda, a warrior named Hundred and an ancient legend about a sleeping dragon. Odo, Eleanor, and their trusty and talkative swords, Biter and Runnel, are plunged into a quest that will take them (as all good quests must) to unfamiliar lands, where they will fight unseen enemies and unlock unbelievable secrets in order to prevent an unbearable impostor from taking the crown. Also, they will need to keep an eye out for dragons. As they did with Have Sword, Will Travel, fantasy masters Garth Nix and Sean Williams have crafted a tale full of fire, laughs and twists for adventurous readers of all ages.

Outside Beijing, China, in the year 1572, nine-year-old Hu-Wan tends the vegetable garden with his grandfather. Their specialty is growing gourds that are made into ladles and bowls and sold in the marketplace. Each year, one special gourd is made into a cricket cage. This year, it is Hu-Wan's turn to grow and carve the special gourd. He decides it should be carved into the shape of a sleeping dragon. When Hu-Wan learns that the emperor has died and his nine-year-old son is named Emperor of China, he decides to give the dragon cricket cage to the young emperor to offer comfort and cheer.

In this “fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek adventure” from New York Times–bestselling authors, best friends journey with a magical sword to save their kingdom (Publishers Weekly). It is strange enough that Odo and Eleanor have stumbled upon a sword in a dried-up river outside their village. It is even stranger that Odo is able to remove it from where it’s buried. And it’s remarkably strange when the sword starts to talk. Odo and Eleanor have unearthed Biter, a famous fighter from earlier times. By finding Biter, Odo instantly becomes a knight—a role he is exquisitely unsuited for. Eleanor, however, would make a perfect knight—but she’s not the one with the sword. Finding Biter is only the start—boy, girl, and sword must soon go on a quest to save their kingdom from threats in both human and dragon form, in this new fantasy triumph from Garth Nix and Sean Williams.

Describes the different dragons Hiccup has met along his journeys, from the fire-breathing Monstrous Nightmare and the rock-eating Gronckle to the two-headed Hideous Zippleback and Hiccup's own Night Fury, Toothless.