The Discovery of Dragons: New Research Revealed

by Graeme Base

A Victorian scientist, R.W. Greasebeam, presents the "original" correspondence of early explorers who encountered some of the world's most fearsome dragons. Base's fans will be delighted by his humorous stories and intricate renderings of these colorful creatures.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Picture Books, Fiction, Art, Childrens, Animals

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Graeme Rowland Base is a British-Australian author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, Animalia published in 1986, and third book The Eleventh Hour which was released in 1989.

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 2 out of 5]

The illustrations are beautiful. The set-up of the book isn’t my cup of tea and it doesn’t work for younger kids either. This is going to be more for middle grade readers who have a higher developed sense of humor.

This isn’t a story, that’s the first problem with the book, it’s 3 different stories of explorers who discovered dragons and they are like letters to a colleague written in a funny style. There is humor, but it’s not your typical picture book humor. I didn’t think it worked all that well. There was a lot of words on the page and it’s like adults might talk and not all relevant.

The nephew loved seeing the 3 types of dragons: European, Asiatic, Tropical, but all the letters bored him. The last few, he told me not to read them, they aren’t funny and little has to do with the dragon. He wanted to simply look at the pictures. The pictures were only of dragons and it was even hard for him to make up a story. He gave this 1 star.

This is not Greame’s best.

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book of dragons, accompanied by correspondence written by the folks who discovered them. The letters are broken up into three groups that feature European dragons, Asiatic dragons and Tropical dragons. The letters themselves are hilarious, with humor that is often subtle and somewhat dark. Many children will not 'get' all of the humor, I suspect, but they are still entertaining to read aloud. The captions for the gorgeous illustrations often play off the letters themselves, as do the cartoonish illustrations that form the bottom border of the page.

The style for each section of dragon is markedly different and it gives the letters and stories a more authentic feel. And the detail on the pictures is just amazing, as we have come to expect from Mr. Base. In fact, after reading parts of this book to children in my oldest daughter's third grade class, I was asked numerous times if the dragons were real. (Even our youngest asked the same question of me at home.) So lifelike are the illustrations and the descriptions of these creatures, I can understand why children might believe this to be a nonfiction book of sorts.

Overall, we really enjoyed reading this book. Our girls were more interested in picking out their favorite dragons and having me read individual pages, but later, I read the whole book cover to cover, laughing often at Graeme Base's wry wit.

[Alfred Haplo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess. I am bit of a dragon-phile. Especially dragons illustrated artfully and beautifully. So, this isn’t really a review worth any two cents but an excuse to show a sample of these awesome, fearsome, loathsome, magnificent creatures (credits to Graeme Base):

St George Dragon


Japanese Butterfly Lizard


Emerald Dragon


Great Snow Dragon


Soong-Chen-Yi’s Dragon


Before you go dragon-hunting please, please! I implore you to at least do this first - read up the rare and historical letters found in the epistolary archives of notable Victorian Scientist, Roland W. Greasebeam BSc. (Serpentology). Letters written by three intrepid adventurers who survived the day long enough to document their harrowing escapades and fascinating encounters with dragons. You need to know the dangers!

What eventually happened to these brave folks is unknown. Let them be remembered as Unsung Dragon Heroes anyway - Bjorn of Bromme, a Viking, who scrawled his notes on a piece of hide while pillaging Europe in the 9th century; Soong Mei Ying, a Chinese tradeswoman, who wrote her father while travelling the Silk Road in the 13th century; Dr. E. F Libermann, a Prussian cartographer, who typed notes to his fiancee in the African jungle in the 19th century.

If the quest now seems too fraught with danger, you can do as I did instead. Read the book. In my esteem, it is also suitable for fearless children who can Read Big Words And Spot Spelling Mistakes Like "Encylopaedia". Also gawk at more gorgeous pictures at the author/illustrator’s website .

[Almak · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Discovery of Dragons is authored and illustrated by Graeme Base and acts as a small compendium on dragons from around the world through the ages. It is written in the format of letters found from "dragon explorers" about their experiences and run-ins with these magical and sometimes deadly creatures.

Each page is colorfully illustrated and includes a small map showing the habitat where each dragon can be found as well as a scale, showing how large or small the dragon is in comparison to such creatures as mice, cats, elephants, and men.

A fun read for both children and adult alike.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember now why I love Base's books so much! He is truly a gifted artist, but this one really shows his sense of humor. My favorite "editor's line" was "the great poet Karioke's ballad, 'I Left My Harp in Sampan Disco'" which made me laugh out loud. I've got to pull all of his books out and reread them! I know they are in the children's section, but I think they're mostly meant for adults.

[Svetlana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I might just be too old for this stuff (I'm 22). The only thing I liked was that fact that the dragons are you non-standard dragons. But it would be cooler if there was more information about the dragons then what was in the letters. And maybe more about the authors of the letters.

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-3.5. Silly and humorous. The author presents the finds of three different individuals in different parts of the world, and their encounters with a variety of dragons. Each finding is presented as a letter from the explorer to a friend, faced by a pretty painting of the dragon.

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dragonology before the Ology books hit big. Base's art is way cool and his writing is fun.

[Ehryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny and entertaining with great art, but the three explorers felt like caricatures of their cultures.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a huge surprise. I thought it would be like On the History and Truth of the Unicorn where an artist makes up a really cool "lost" manuscript, but this was a whole 'nother bundle of laundry.



There are some children's books that really are not meant for children to read. They are meant for adults to read -- or adults that have to read to their children, find the task boring and deliberately look for jokes that go WAY over their kids' heads. And if your kids DO get these jokes then you've either got a future world leader or a future religious cult leader on your hands.

The digs here span a broad spectrum of subjects from the Bayeux Tapestry, to Chinese calligraphy to book publisher logos. Some of the digs are in the art and not the text. So, reading this at times is like watching Fantasia -- you see new things each time. I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth to find things like a child waving to a departing boatload of Vikings -- and then a couple pages later a penguin waves in the exact same way to the remaining Vikings.



Oh, and there's some really cool illustrations of dragons, too.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tongue-in-cheek "study" of dragons

I just finished reading/looking at another of Graeme Base's books - "Animalia." I enjoyed the story and the gorgeous illustrations in this book, too (THE DISCOVERY OF DRAGONS-NEW RESEARCH REVEALED). Graeme Base, the author/illustrator, is also known as Rowland W. Greasebeam B.Sc. in this book **wink**wink.

This book consists of the tongue-in-cheek observations of four old-time explorers of the world that happen upon dragons during their explorations. In their correspondence to various people, the explorers tell about their finding of the dragons.

I do wish some of the letters had been in easier type to read. Some of them were a little difficult to make out because of the font used . Also, I wish that the books had been bound so that the pictures weren't cut in half. In some of the pictures, the dragons' heads can't be seen and it's too bad because the illustrations really make this book.

But - if you love dragons, this is a "must have" item for you. It fun and silly but dazzlingly illustrated at the same time.

[Brooke Holthe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing I noticed when I grabbed the book was how tall it was, this made me think about how tall all the dragons might be. When I opened the book and looked through the pages I was pleased to see how different each chapter was with where the dragons are from and the adventures these people went on. I like that each dragon had a detailed picture of it as well as where it was found and an estimate of its size by putting a picture of an animal roughly that size. Reading the letter about the dragon doesn't give the only detail about it, around the bottom of the picture and letter is a small kind of hidden message which includes the name of the dragon as well as information about it.

My students love things about dragons and have been asking for books about them which I didn't own any till now. The information in this may make the students think that they are real due to the letters and all the details about each dragon.

[Brunnstag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, lavishly illustrated with wonderful stories in the form of letters from various past explorers who've discovered dragons during their travels. I received this book as a child and was enthralled by it. The pages all contain borders in the form of small comic-strip like illustrations showing the travels of the various people, all of which are done in the cultural artistic style of whichever region the section is detailing. Cute, funny, and gorgeous I would highly recommend this book to everyone!

I do own the new 'revised' version that has added dragons from the Americas- I don't believe this new section truly stands up in quality to the original three. The new beasties are just not quite as good... But as the new revised book has everything the original did, and is probably easier to come by then the original, I recommend it just as highly!

[Christen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a vertically oriented postmodern picturebook. The images are realistically done with amazing detail. Each dragon image is framed with a thin black line. It is positioned on the right hand side of the page and crosses over onto the left side of the page by a couple of inches. Each dragon is paired with a letter from Bjorn of Bromme, Mei Ying, Dr E. F. Liebermann, or Francisco. Each letter has a different typographic style that pairs with the dragon being described. The bottom of each page has a boarder with images that connect to the letter written and dragon discovered. In addition, location of and size of each dragon is given. This postmodern book contains several metafictive devices such as characters commenting about their own stories and other stories and new or unusual design and layout. Readers must closely examine all aspects of this book to understand the details.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 2 out of 5]

If kids today can't read faced clocks, there's no way they can navigate this format fail: art strung across pages stranding it in the book buttcrack, so large it won't fit conservative shelves, pages so big that small child hands tear the pages at the bottom. All so we can read pointless handwritten English letters, when the author's would have used other native languages.

To generate some tension, the story is a dragon theory publishing rivalry between Greasebeam (anagram detected) and Fibblewitz. Frankly, I could do better, so I didn't read that old-timey cramped hand drawn letter writifying.

May have inspired the much more successful Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

What I really liked about this book is that my 6 year old would listen raptly while I read to her (or play with the various objects) and I could enjoy the wit of the 'story'. It was fun and very tongue in cheek in many areas. Plus, there is so much to explore and do with the book. The illustrations were good and it is an easy read. I would definitely recommend this, especially as a book to read to a child. They won't get all (or many) of the concepts but there's enough to see/touch/play with that it won't matter.

[Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earlier this year, after moving into my new place, I dug up some of the boxes in my parent’s basement to consolidate and prune my collections. Of course, digging up some childhood favorites, I had to pause to flip through them again, reminding me of days past when there was plenty of time to read, whether on hot summer days or cold winter nights. Many of these books were Christmas or birthday gifts, of course, the inscriptions from family members still scrawled on the inside covers, 1988, 1990, 1994. How well did they hold up? Find out more at my BookLikes blog, Reading Rainstorm, here!

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was completely obsessed with this book when I was younger, but somehow managed to lose track of it for years - until it showed up in Value Village last summer! I absolutely had to buy it, just to relive a little bit of my childhood. Obviously I still love dragons, even though my obsession has calmed somewhat, so it was great to peruse Bases' "explorers' journal" of dragons. His accompanying writing, while humourous, has decreased somewhat in entertainment value, but the unique physiology of his dragons from around the world holds up to current scrutiny.

[Sal Villarreal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the illustrations in this book. Being a big fantasy lover I enjoyed the rich detail of each illustrations. I also liked the medieval tone that the borders added to the book. It certainly had a manuscript look to it.

In comparison to my other review for this week I feel that that text was part of the experience but I had a very difficult time reading the text. The semi cursive writing and the background color made it an eye straining experience. So I only read the accompanying pages to the illustrations that I found the most interesting.

[Danna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning and clever; I can't help but love a story so detailed that even the dedication, afterword, and other bits of cataloging data are written in character. Nice reward for those of us who like to read even those obscure parts of a book. (I sailed the Nostalgia Sea this weekend, revisiting my Graeme Base collection before giving it away. Lovely books, and time for them to be passed on to a new soon-to-be reader. Welcome to the world little Benjamin! I'm happy to be your Auntie.)

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really really love the pictures, and my children did as well... However, this is an older children's book more than anything. As far as a story goes it doesn't capture a young child's attention for any length of time, and it's hard to read even for me as an adult. The story itself is too fractured to flow well, but the illustrations make it worth buying if only to learn to draw beautiful dragons.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations/painting as one would expect from Graeme Base, and we enjoyed the size comparison graphics in the corners too. The map graphics however fell short for many of the dragons since the highlighted area of where in the world they are found was so small it was negligible on the world map. The attempted humour from the pseudo-author was not appealing to myself or my son and it was hard to get past that.

[Historic_Heroine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came out when I was a young teen. I was older than the target audience, I'm sure, but it was about dragons and had gorgeous illustrations so I had to have it! I absolutely loved it. The main reason to get this book is the illustrations, but the "research" is interesting and fun as well. I didn't realize there was a new edition with more dragons added. I am excited to get it from the library rediscover these amazing dragons.

[Aneesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of books about the historical and scientific origins of dragons.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This companion book to Base's The Discovery of Dragons, adds a new chapter by Francisco de Nuevo about the New World dragons. Love the dragon illustrations!

[Miki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A seriously funny, laugh-out-loud treatise on dragon finding, told in letters from intrepid explorers. My favorites were written by Bjorn of Bromme, a ninth-century Viking, but the others are pretty good, too.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated book of journal entries about people discovering dragons. A bit of humor mixed in for good measure, my son loves this book.

[Juli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adorable epistolary story of three separate explorers who encounter dragons! The beautiful illustrations alone are worth the read.

[Stacy K Shera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hilarious!!!

[Shiyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover of this book is very surprising because it looks cool and the illustrations on the cover are the three dragons flying in the sky. Second, the title is also very different. The letter D appears in the image of a dragon. The last page of the book is also dominated by a blue background.

What's interesting about this book is that it uses a lot of adventurer's letters to tell one story after another, which is quite different from some ordinary first-person or third-person narratives. this is new! Secondly, the book also shows the understanding of the dragon image by different peoples, which is very interesting! Because children can learn about different cultures from this book, they can lay the foundation for their future to become more culturally inclusive. The illustrations in this book are very beautiful and varied, including one page and one illustration, and some are two pages. This is a great way to add texture to your picture book and get your child's attention.

I shared this book with my 5-year-old sister and a 23-year-old friend. Although they vary widely in age, they are all attracted to this book. I think it may be because the illustrations are very beautiful. I may not find the second book! I highly recommend it.