Fred Patten Reviews Dragonbreath #6: Revenge of the Horned Bunnies

Dragonbreath #6: Revenge of the Horned Bunnies
Author: Ursula Vernon
Publisher: Penguin Group/Dial Books
ISBN-10: 0-8037-3677-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-8037-3677-1

I do not usually read children’s books of the “8 and up” age level, but Ursula Vernon painted an award-winning cover for a book of mine (adult) in 2003. So when I learned that she was starting a series of her own written-and-illustrated children’s books in 2009, I was curious enough to read the first of them … and I have enjoyed it and its five sequels very much. “and up”, indeed.

Danny Dragonbreath is an elementary-school student in a middle-class anthropomorphic reptilian/amphibian community. His best friend is Wendell the bookish iguana; other classmates include Christiana the crested lizard (she’s okay, for a girl), and his nemesis, Big Eddy the komodo dragon (the class bully). Eddy accuses Danny of being a liar for claiming that he is a dragon, just because he can’t breathe fire yet; Eddy taunts that he is just a common lizard.

“Danny Dragonbreath had a great imagination, much to the dismay of his parents, his teachers, the lunch lady, and the occasional ambulance crew.

“Even he, however, had a hard time imagining his best friend, Wendell the iguana, as a desperate outlaw. Wendell would never ride into a town and shoot it up, and given the choice between holding up a train and determining how fast a train leaving Cincinnati going sixty miles an hour would take to catch up to a train leaving an hour earlier and going forty-five miles an hour … well, Wendell would take the story problem every time.”

Previous books have gotten Danny and Wendell involved with sea serpents and giant squid, ninja frogs, were-weiners, a giant bat who might or might not be a vampire, and a ghost. In “Revenge of the Horned Bunnies”, Danny is excitedly preparing for a week of summer camp. “Camp was going to be so cool. Maybe they’d even find gold in the desert! Outlaws buried their gold sometimes, didn’t they? Either way, nothing could spoil his excitement. He loved summer camp.”

And then his mother tells him that he is expected to watch over his bratty seven-year-old cousin Spencer all the time that they are in camp. “He supposed he probably wouldn’t want Spencer to be eaten by ravenous eels, but that was only because his aunt Shirley was pretty nice and sent good Christmas presents (never socks and underwear), and having her son eaten by eels would make her sad. On the other hand, if Spencer were merely kidnapped by ravenous eels, and forced to work in an eel-owned salt mine, that would be just fine with Danny.”

Danny, Christiana, Wendell, and little Spencer go to Camp Jackalope (Your Home on the Range). Jackalopes are only mythical animals, of course. Until Spencer meets a real one. “It had big liquid eyes, like a Japanese anime princess.” The jackalopes have been mysteriously vanishing, and the adult camp counselors can’t be trusted, so the four youngsters have to investigate and solve the 195-page case of the jackalope-nappers on their own.

The Dragonbreath books switch smoothly on almost every page between text and comic-book illustrated dialogue. Text: “‘Maybe aliens got [Spencer],’ said Danny hopefully. “In a UFO.’ ‘Unlikely.’ Christiana looked down her snout at him. ‘Most UFOs turn out to be weather balloons or the planet Venus.’ ‘I don’t mind if the aliens take him to Venus. I bet Venus is very nice this time of year.’” Comic-book: “‘Actually, it rains sulfuric acid on Venus.’ ‘Smells like rotten eggs AND eats through flesh.’ ‘That. Is. So. COOL!’”

Vernon does not hesitate to throw in advanced vocabulary like “ponderosa pine forest”, “dominant biome”, “bourgeois institution”, and “structural integrity”. (Christiana uses Big Words that the others pretend they understand.) The Dragonbreath series can be counted on for both childish and adult giggles and chuckles approximately every six months. There is a preview of Dragonbreath #7: When Fairies Go Bad.