Lights Out, Little Dragon

By Debra Tidball & Rae Tan
Reviewed by Margarite Igras

This is the award-winning Australian author Debra Tidball’s second interactive story for  younger children.  In The CBCA Notable Book 2018, The Scared Book, the author asks the reader and listener to blow away the giant butterflies and fan away the yucky monster smell. While in this her latest interactive book, the children are asked to help a little girl get her cheeky dragon to sleep.  Together with Rae Tan’s pastel watercolour illustrations and delightfully expressive characters, this is sure to be a bedtime favourite for 2- to 5-year-olds.

It is bedtime and the little girl dressed in dinosaur pyjamas is trying to get her green dragon to sleep, but he just wants to play. My little dragon is so tired, but he won’t go to sleep. What can I do? … Maybe you can help? The children are asked to say out loud, ‘Go to bed, Little Dragon!’?  to scratch the dragon’s itchy tummy, to show the dragon their biggest stretchiest yawn and to even tell him a short bedtime story.

The talented newcomer Rae Tan has beautifully captured the little girl’s frustration and the cheeky and at times playful behaviour of the dragon with her many pencil- like drawings and soft moody colours. As parents we recognise these antics, and so do the younger readers.  The little girl is thankful when finally, the dragon snuggles up, the lights are turned down and we are asked to Blow Little Dragon a kiss and whisper-wish him goodnight.

A refreshing bedtime tale that invites the reader and listener to enjoy a story, engage with the storyteller, and the illustrations, and with many positive responses, feel they have somehow contributed to solving this nightly tale.

HarperCollins AU 2024