PreS-Gr 2-As in Good Night, Good Knight (Dutton, 2000), Thomas and Plecas bring engaging twists to familiar story elements for beginning readers. Here the knight finds his three little dragon friends suffering with terrible colds and the noble fellow sets off to seek a healing potion. The wizard's "scaly, snail-y soup" is too dreadful to eat and his slimy, grimy brew equally distasteful, so the knight asks his mother for help. With a "little of this and a little of that," she prepares a delicious cure. Plecas's cartoon illustrations have requisite picture clues, cheerful colors, and lots of details. Ingredients for the wizard's concoctions are printed in bold type over the steam coming from his pot. Dragons whose expressions are oh-so-miserably sick miraculously beam with health and vitality on the last page. This is a royal treat to soothe any beginning reader's blues and will inspire repeated readings.-Laura Scott, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Primary) When readers first met the Good Knight (Good Night, Good Knight, rev. 1/00), he was trying his chivalrous best to help three little dragons get to sleep. This time, the situation is more serious. Riding through the dense forest in the faraway kingdom, he hears a sneeze. ""Methinks my dragon friends are not well."" And sick they are: ""'Cough cough,' went the first dragon. 'Sniffle sniffle,' went the second dragon. 'Achoo!' went the third dragon."" Two visits to the local wizard, who first concocts ""scaly snail-y soup"" and then whips up ""slimy grimy soup,"" fail to cure the trio. So, the good knight goes to the source of good advice and even better medicine: his mother and her homemade chicken soup. The dragons declare it yummy, slurp it all down, and shout in unison, ""We are well!"" As she did in the first book, Thomas again borrows from the oral tradition with the faraway setting, the three trials, the progressive plot, and the repetition of phrases. Each element delivers a familiar piece of story, helping beginning readers shape the structure and actively participate in predicting the meaning. Decodable words enhance the narrative (as in the soup ingredients, for example: ""frog slime / old grime / a rusty dime / a rotten lime""). Illustrations highlight important events and character traits, again helping readers but not making all the meaning for them. Get Well, Good Knight rewards beginners with what reading is all about: a fine story, well told. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

K^-Gr. 2. In this Dutton Easy Reader, a sequel to Good Night, Good Knight (2000), the Good Knight gallops through the forest to find out who is sneezing. He soon finds a cave where three feverish little dragons lie coughing and sniffling. Answering the knight's plea for help, a wizard concocts first a "scaly snail-y soup," then a "slimy grimy soup," but neither is palatable enough to swallow. When the Good Knight's mother makes chicken soup, though, the little dragons slurp the cure down. A plot summary does little justice to a book that goes beyond good narrative structure and simple words to create a tale that is always winning and frequently funny. The subject and the appealing ink-and-watercolor illustrations will attract young readers, but a great deal of the book's charm lies in the telling. Excellent for young readers and for reading aloud to younger children who are intrigued by knights and dragons. --Carolyn Phelan

Ah-choo! The three little dragons are sick and the Good Knight (Good Night, Good Knight, 1999) once again comes to the rescue. While riding through the forest, keeping watch over everything and everyone, the Good Knight hears a sneeze. He finds his dragon friends in their cave, hot with fever, noses running, and teeth "chat-chat-chattering." He visits the old wizard for a concoction that will cure the sick dragons. These little dragons are sick, but they are not sick enough to scarf down a nasty soup made of fish scales, old snails, fingernails, and lizard tails. Undaunted, our hero turns repeatedly to the wizard, who comes up with revolting concoctions that the sick but discerning dragons repeatedly reject. Finally, our Good Knight turns to the person he should have turned to in the first place--his mother. She throws in a little of this and a little of that and comes up with something that makes them slurp the soup until every drop is gone. Plecas's endearing, whimsical illustrations record every detail, from the hero's greenish cheeks and pale extended tongue spitting out some slimy concoction to the exhausted droopy dragon eyelids. Repeated phrases and familiar, amusing situations are the recipe for a tale that will not lose its flavor when read over and over. Emerging readers will read this one again and again, every delicious word. Long live the Good Knight! (Easy reader. 4-8)