R.S.V.P.? Do Not Take Your Dragon to Dinner by Julie Gassman

IT'S A SPECIAL OCCASION. IT'S TIME FOR A TREAT.
TIME TO DRESS UP AND GO OUT TO EAT.

But despite how much you love your, er, pet, most of them are not an asset to a special dinner party at a restaurant. And of all those special family "friends," one high on the list to leave at home is your dragon!

Dragons are not dedicated to dainty dining etiquette!

A WING IN YOUR FACE! A TAIL IN A DRINK!
AND WORST OF ALL, THAT DISTINCT DRAGON STINK!

Dragons are also prone to slurp and burp at will. Their incredibly messy eating and rude noises are disgusting enough to clear the restaurant so effectively that your dinner party soon becomes a private party. But maybe there's a better way to celebrate.

If you party at home, the dragon can be helpful. He can light all the birthday candles with one breath! Then you can all exhale and enjoy the meal. Maybe your dragon will even learn some table manners--like using his napkin to wipe his mouth instead of the whole tablecloth, eating with the appropriate silverware instead of his claws. and when to say "Please" and "Thank you!"

PRACTICE THIS OFTEN AND YOUR ETIQUETTE BEGINNER
WILL SOON BE TAKING YOU OUT TO DINNER!

Julie Gassman's Do Not Take Your Dragon to Dinner (Capstone Press, 2017) slips in a small lesson in manners along with her comic description of the dangers of dining out with a dragon. The author favors jolly rhyming couplets, which scan more neatly than her protagonist eats, and her rhymes and rhythm make this one a pleasure to read, aloud or silently. Taking a page from Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? (Book & CD), (see review here), Gassman's newest puts in a plug for proper table manners by slyly pointing out the gross-out factor of bad dining habits, all the while keeping kids in stitches, gleefully chiming in on the tag line, "DO NOT TAKE YOUR DRAGON TO DINNER!" The broad humor here is helped greatly by artist Andy Elkerton's exaggerated sight gags of the downside of dining with dragons. Share it with Sally Lloyd-Wright's Being a Pig Is Nice: A Child's-Eye View of Manners for a funny take on the downside of dining without rules.