Get Well, Good Knight

My 4 1/2 year old son loves the "Good Knight" series of stories. He especially loves this one. When we're done reading the book, he actually wanted to "finish" writing the story, which was a nice surprise. He dictated his version of the sick Good Knight and illustrated his story. This was the first (and so far, only) time he ever thought of doing something like that, and we read different stories every night! I was impressed that it sparked such creativity. The repetitive words are great for early readers.

My four year old girl has been enamored with dragons for a couple of years, and has lately gotten very interested in knights, castles, etc. I quickly found that there is very little out there that is appropriate for smaller children, on the subject of knights. Either the information is too complex, or more likely, too gruesome for my taste. When I discovered this sweet series, I immediately wanted all of them. I really like the way the verses flow and how the author repeats the action over and over. I was amused and pleased that the knight finally turns to his own mother, when the magician was unable to create a concoction to help heal the dragons, and used my favorite remedy-chicken soup! The efforts of the magician provided us much laughter as he mixed, "fish scales, old snails, fingernails, and lizard tails", or "frog slime, old grime, a rusty dime, a rotten lime". As all of the books, this one has a rhythm that is smooth and pleasant to read and hear. So many rhyming books sound forced and awkward, but none of these Good Knight books fall into this category. I'd give these a two thumbs up! These are just fun books. I'm glad my library has them, but we are buying them too, so we can read them whenever we want! It is a refreshing angle to the knight and dragon relationship. Nearly everything else I found was adversarial, and since we love dragons, I was sorry about that. If you have a child who loves knights and dragons, also check out Tomie Paola's The Knight and the Dragon, about a knight reading up on how to fight dragons and a dragon reading up on how to fight knights. The "fight" is hilarious and the end has a clever twist that delighted my child and me too! The Reluctant dragon, by Kenneth Grahame, is either for an older child who can read, or a great read aloud that my four year old enjoyed, and there is a neat old Disney movie based on this book. We loved this too.

This story is very engaging and well-written. It will definitely keep children entertained. Plus the illustrations are worth pouring over. They are interesting and have many things going on in the backgrounds.

I highly recommend this book for doing Reader's Theatre in the Classroom. You won't regret it!

If you and your children loved Good Night, Good Knight, you'll love this book. Once again, the Good Knight helps those cute little dragons - this time with their colds. You'll love the remedy that finally works (Mom's chicken soup) and the cute ending. My kids are 5 and 8, and they both enjoyed it.