Can You Keep a Secret?

Winnie often wakes in the night, thinking she hears a dragon roaring, though her parents assure her it’s only the wind. Yet, one morning, when she’s out practising with her sword, the wind picks her up and deposits her on a real dragon’s back!

When the dragon introduces Winnie to the other mythical creatures (all of which feature in an old tapestry that hangs on the wall in Winnie’s house), they swear Winnie to secrecy that it was indeed them making a hullabaloo at night. But when Winnie returns home, will she be able to keep the creatures’ secret?

Melissa Castrillon’s magical tale of hidden gryphons, dragons and tree men will delight any reader that loves a fairy tale with a feisty heroine, and her singular, colourful pencil illustration is a pure delight. It’s a book to delight art fans, with a lovely story about the ways we explain away magical things with supposedly rational ideas. There’s also something of Where The Wild Things Are here, with the monsters making a ruckus and the child that is transported away, perhaps during a dream.