Billy and the Dragon

By Nadia Shireen
Penguin Random House Children's
All ages

I love, love, love this book - I read it cover to cover with a smile on my face (apart from scary dragon bits).

 Billy and Fatcat (cat companion -sold already!) are at a fancy dress party with little animals when a dragon grabs and flies away with Fatcat! It's up to Billy to rescue her sidekick...

 This book has humour - including Fatcat's expressions, (just one example of the simple, textured and expressive illustrations). It has animals so adorable they literally have an 'adorable' prefix. It has a determined, brave heroine - dressed as a knight, who represents girls of colour.

 However, although Billy is physically brave and the rescue is funny, she is clever - she discovers why the dragon took her cat in the first place in a really smart plot twist.

 Cleverness, cats, girl knights and dragons called Simon... absolutely brilliant!


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