While he feeds them ‘ stale biscuits and smelly cheese‘ the dragons overwhelm George so that he spends ‘ more of his time cleaning up. Children will enjoy finding all the little dragons on the different pages and siding with George in these discoveries whilst the adults in his world are too busy to notice. Children will memorise and perform this poem, describe objects to aliens using adjectives before finally writing their own alien poems. The dragons need to find their way home before they're noticed by other people, and George is the only one who can get them there.

I used the online version posted by The Scottish Book Trust, and I introduced it with some hidden picture activities. Ward easily captures the everyday magic of childhood and turns it into an adventure that will delight readers so long as they are old enough to follow along with the illustrations. The phrase 'George and the Dragon' conjures up all sorts of images but I doubt one in which George is a lonely child and the dragon a creature which remains harmless and largely unseen.George feels invisible in the eyes of adults so he begins to "see" dragons everywhere - "perched on the telephone wires and lurked in the trash cans. Children read either The dog who wouldn't stop barking, The Owl and the moon or Chicken's bad dream (Hamilton Group Readers). I felt like there was not a lot of complexity to the story, but again, perhaps that is essential to appeal to three-year-olds.

It is the simple, matter of fact manner in which the author describes George's observations of the dragons that is captivating, almost mesmerizing. This resources will encourage and support pupils to explore unknown vocabulary, classify tiered vocabulary independently, explore the wider application of newly acquired vocabulary and enhance classroom vocabulary display which ultimately leads to improved retention. The fanciful stance of this story is somewhat overstated and simplifies a story that could have had much more depth. The perfect introduction to the legendary world of dragons, The Dragon Machine uses a clever mix of text and illustrations to describe how George, a young, overlooked boy, becomes aware of dragons hiding all around him. I chose this for a first week of school read-aloud for 3rd grade because it has very beautiful illustrations, also because the other book we read was The Library Dragon and this library seems to have a thing for dragons.The burning curiosity of a child is the key to this beautiful tale worth reading over and over again. This text could lead to further investigations of dragons, using the book Dragonology which also uses the talents of Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson amongst others – both are multi-award-winning.