East Is East and West Is West: Gondra's Treasure by Linda Sue Park

My mom's family comes from the West.

Dad's family is from the East. My name is Gondra, and I was born
somewhere in the middle.

Dragons from the West fly with wings and have green scales. They also breathe fire.

Dragons from the East fly by magic and have golden scales. They breathe mist.

When Gondra was born, a teeny flame came from one nostril and a trace of mist came from the other.

"Adorable!" said her mom.

Dad agreed she was perfect.

Gondra can't wait for her tiny wings to grow big enough to fly. So far she sees no sign of magic like Dad's, but she soon spots a few new greenish blue scales on her tail.

Dad is so proud that he mists up the living room and makes it rain.

But sometimes Mom and Dad quibble about their differences. Dad thinks hoarding a treasure trove in a cave can't hold a candle to flying over the earth and magically controlling the weather.

"Where I come from, humans love dragons," says Dad.

Mom said, "In the West, humans haven't always loved dragons. But they do love stories about us!"

East is East and West is West, and Gondra is sure that she is the best of both.

After all, she is her Mom and Dad's treasure in Linda Sue Park's sweet fantasy story of picking the best from the family tree, in Newbery author Linda Sue Park's fanciful family tale, the forthcoming Gondra's Treasure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019).  It may be a bit of a fairy-tale family, but Gondra's parents do banter over whose way is best, ("Compared to fire, mist is...um, pretty boring," Mom mutters to herself, ), and Dad rejoices when Gondra sprouts a few blue scales like his. And like all little ones, Gondra blossoms in her parents' pride and love.

Artist Jennifer Black Reinhardt artfully skips the cliches in drawing dragons, giving all three characters their own colorful individual look while keeping to the actual archetypes of both types of dragons with an abundance of imagination and creativity in this definitely different dragon tale. Perfect for building healthy self-concepts and sparking conversations about family history.

Author Park appends an Author's Note, full of both Eastern and Western dragon lore and suggests why peoples of all ages of history have loved dragon stories.