The Boy Who Grew Dragons - Andy Shepherd - ★★.½

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AUTHOR: Andy Shepherd
ILLUSTRATOR: Sara Ogilvie
SERIES: The Boy Who Grew Dragons, #1
GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction
RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: Even dragons couldn’t save this for me. It has a few merits but becomes boring after a few chapters.

Story Synopsis:
When Tomas discovers a strange tree in a corner of his grandfather’s garden, he doesn’t realise that its odd egg-shaped fruit will soon hatch and produce a baby dragon. Tomas names his new pet Flicker and does his best to keep him fed and out of sight. However, having a pet dragon is not easy, especially when Tomas doesn’t know how to control it and can’t even ask anyone for help. When Tomas realises that having Flicker around is as much dangerous as it is fun, he needs to learn more about dragons, asap!
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Tomas.


I can’t believe that a book with dragons could bore me so much. The story started off wonderfully. Tomas’s discovery of the pitaya tree (commonly known as the dragon fruit tree) created a great beginning, and his initial adventures with Flicker were fun. However, the story soon starts dragging. Though the title does tell us that the focus will be on the “boy who grew dragons”, there should have been more of the dragon itself. Flicker’s appearances are relatively minimal, and the jokes about his exploding poo get monotonous quickly.

The writing approach seems similar to that of David Walliams, but unlike the latter’s books, this one goes off track quickly. The jokes fall flat after the first few chapters. The illustrations are decent, and probably the best feature of the book.

Now you might think that the book was written for middle-graders and hence will work better for the target age group. But my younger one read this book as well, and more importantly, she read this alone without me there to influence her., But her feedback was exactly the same – that it started off nicely but became too boring afterwards.

On the positive side, I enjoyed Tomas’ bond with his grandfather and his younger sister Lolli. Flicker also is really cute whenever he gets to be in the spotlight. Also, I had never bothered to look up a dragon fruit tree before this book sparked my curiosity. Those trees are amazing!

This is the first of a five book series, but I personally would rather read David Walliams than continue with this series, despite the dragons. Then again, this is a debut work, so it is quite possible that the author learnt from this experience and her subsequent books work better. The ratings on Goodreads seem to suggest the same. So it might still be worth giving this a series a try. Do check out the other reviews for a more informed decision.

2.5 stars. (2 stars from me, 3 stars from the little one. Averaging the two and rounding up keeping the target age group’s feedback in mind.)

My thanks to Piccadilly Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Boy Who Grew Dragons”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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