Dragon in Danger

Dragon #2

by Rosemary Manning, Constance Marshall (Illustrator)

Constance MarshallJacket design (front): by Constance Marshall. Shows a small, green and nervous looking dragon on the left looking slightly upwards. Seems to be in a barn. Drawing looks to be done with pencil crayon in green, reddish-brown and pale yellow.Title in green pencil crayon written in script. Author and illustrators names at the bottom.Jacket (back): Constable & Co. logo at top centre with decriptions on three other Constable & Co. titles underneath. Bound in yellow with a simple illustration of a dragon and girl walking done in green in the lower left of the front cover.

Genres: Childrens, Fantasy, Childrens Fantasy, Dragons

Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Rosemary Joy Manning was a British author of both adult and children's books. Her best-known novel is The Chinese Garden, considered by some to be an important lesbian book. She was also well known for her popular Dragon children's series. She was also well known for her popular Dragon children's series. She was also known by the pseudonyms Sarah Davys and Mary Voyle.

Reviews

[Capn]

After enjoying reading Green Smoke aloud at bedtime, mum here went and tracked down all 3 sequels. Unfortunately, this title sat at risk of DNF for months, before I decided to finish it solo. As reviewer Fiona said, it's just a little too different in structure and content to the first, and while R. Dragon retains his charm and personality, there's just too much about various other people (Mrs. Wotherspoon, the gipsy-hating xenophobe and organizer of the St Aubyn's pageant; Fred and William, the removal men; Natasha, Richard, and Jeremy, Sue's friends; Mr Snarkins and Mr Boggs, the villains; the Mayor; Susan's parents; blah, blah blah.

R. Dragon enjoys a wholesome sing-song in the moving van (it helps if you are old enough to know the songs Daisy, Daisy, It's a Long Way to Tipperary, Demerara, Shenandoah, and the like), and agrees to play the part of the defeated dragon in the village pageant (after much deference from the Mayor, of course), before being kidnapped for a sideshow by Boggs and Snarkins. It all ends happily ever after, with the dragon deciding to return to Cornwall.

I've got the next 2 books, and I'm not hugely motivated to carry on immediately with them, if I'm honest. Green Smoke IS worth tracking down, but I feel the rest may be only for serious fans. :)

[Rosie 😀📚]

Love these books so much!!!!

[Pollymoore3]

A delightful old-fashioned read, and a worthy sequel to "Green Smoke", though part of the charm of the first book was that Susan could talk to her mother about the dragon and her mother went along with what she believed was her daughter's game. Here everyone can see him (but that's kind of the point now).
Just a quibble: the old pre-decimal amounts have been updated, a bit haphazardly, (fancy Puffin bothering!), to make it more understandable for 1970s kids no doubt. But set in 1959 it should be shillings and pence. Otherwise "A Flat Iron for a Farthing" of 1872 would have to become "A Flat Iron for Something Considerably Less than Half a P". And then, what's a flat iron? etc etc.... But 25p = 5 shillings (or it did in 1971), and 5 shillings in 1959 would have bought you a heck of a lot of icecream. I wonder what the original edition says.

[Fiona]

Dragon in Danger does not have quite the same appeal as Green Smoke. There are hints of the elements that made the first book in the series so wonderful for me - King Arthur, for example - but these are fleeting. The storyline is not as ‘believable’ (if you can use that word when talking about dragons!) but it is some light fun and a lovely way to pass an afternoon.

[Jane]

Not sure why this series is so charming but it is.

[A.E. Shaw]

Another gentle, beautiful book. Such a fine story with amusing, calmly resolved conflict rather than an excess of jeopardy. As a child, I loved the straightforward magic of these stories, and as an adult, I appreciate how rare they are.

[Edward Davies]

This sequel to Green Smoke has R Dragon travelling to visit his friend Sue. What follows is a cute story which has limited peril considering it's title, but kids will enjoy the sheer childlike quality of the niceness of the characters.