I Thought I Saw a Dragon Late Last Night! by Clayton J Liotta

Hi there!

Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers…the place to be when it reaches that special time of day that can only be truly filled with one thing, the fluttering of pages.

Yesterday, we played host to a blog tour featuring a newly released title from the Fiction range of things.  Today, we’re stepping back to the land of Children’s Fiction, with a story that’s short and sweet, yet brimming with imagination.  There’s a little investigative work on your part as well as you try to uncover whether to trust your eyes or rather those of our young narrator because what they just might be seeing is pretty hard to believe.  Today’s book of choice ladies and gents and children of all ages is….

I Thought I Saw a Dragon Late Last Night!

Written and Illustrated by

Clayton J. Liotta

This is the story of one little boy’s imagination gone wild…or has it?  It starts with a bump and a growl in the night and escalates to a self-led dragon hunt the next morning.  He travels here and there and everywhere he thinks a dragon might possibly go to wile away a day, stopping only for a snack or two along the way.  Try as he might, he can’t seem to track the tricky creature down and so continues our tale of seek and find.

The humorous part of this 32 pager is the fact that wherever the boy travels, the dragon is RIGHT THERE, every time…just hiding or disguising himself so as not to be noticed.  He does a rather bang up job on that front too because the young lad always seems to be a step ahead which in this case means a step behind (since the dragon is following him).  With every turn of the page, there is a new illustration to take in and discovering the dragon in each and every picture is just as much fun as the story itself.

With every book read, we discover highs and lows; though short in length, this one still has both, though the first is in more abundance.  As this is a storybook and we’ve discussed the imagination filled story, allow me to mention the artwork once again.  Each image presented takes an everyday mundane scene and hides that little something extra within its borders.  From the dragon himself to the butter dripping from his dinner, the boarded up windows on a house to a ladies rather pugly hat (yes, I said pugly), there’s something to be discovered within each pencil drawn creation.  The color scheme is neutral overall but it just makes the vivid burst of dragon-ness stand out all the more…to us at least.  My favorite scene has to be when the little boy is eating his pancake breakfast before heading out on the hunt.  The “cook” is real fired up….if you know what I mean.  ^_^

The “low” for me would have been found at the very end.  How so?  Well, the story is written in rhyme, albeit some are tougher connections than others (kudos to the author on that count), but at the very last second….it drops.  *-*  Yep…I couldn’t help feeling that the last page was perhaps missing a sentence, or merely two words like “good night”.  Then again, perhaps the author intended this to coincide with the boy’s conclusion about what he heard.  *ponders*

All in all, a fun and imaginative story that’s good for all ages.  The young ones will be caught up in finding the dragon as the pages turn, while older readers will remark on the author’s ability to create a flowing rhyme out of unusually connected words.  It’s a fun, quick read full of imagination that is sure to bring out the dragon hunter (or rather tracker) in you.

Review copy received courtesy of author Clayton Liotta and Bostick Communications. (THANKS!) To see what Bostick Communications is up to now, be sure to visit them online.   More information on this newly released title from Createspace can be found on the author’s official website.  

Until next time…happy reading!