Ellie’s Dragon
Bob Graham
Walker Books

Bob Graham has created yet another gorgeous picture book, one that celebrates the imagination of young children.

It features Ellie who when quite young discovers a multi-hued, newly hatched baby dragon atop an egg box in the supermarket. She names him Scratch and takes him home with her.
There she accommodates the tiny creature in her doll’s house feeding him on such fare as nasturtiums, chillies and burnt toast. All the while her mother sees nothing unusual.

As she grows and changes, Ellie’s love for the dragon remains constant: she takes him to nursery

on outings and even to the cinema.

Like Ellie though, Scratch grows and changes. When Ellie turns eleven, her dragon begins to fade away until for the teenage girl, he finally disappears.

It’s time for Scratch to find a new child …

As always, Bob Graham’s illustrations are suffused with his own brand of gentle humour and full of wonderfully whimsical details, as he documents this poignant portrayal of growing up and losing that sense of awe and wonder, that boundless imagination that sadly, so many children have ‘educated’ out of them.