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Lucy Turns Pages: The Tea Dragon Festival Book Review!

The Tea Dragon Festival Book Review!

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book review, book reviews, childrens book, dragons, graphic novel, illustrated, illustrations, kate o neill, middlegrade, tea dragon, the tea dragon festival, Title: The Tea Dragon Festival
Author: Katie O' Neill
Genres: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Middle Grade
Publication date: 2019
Number of pages: 136
Previous book in the series: The Tea Dragon Society

Synopsis:
Tea Dragons have lived in Rinn's village for longer than she has existed. One day she suddenly finds a real dragon, Aedhan. Aedhan was recruited to protect the village but has been asleep in the forest for eighty years!

Rinn's uncle and his partner help to investigate why the dragon fell asleep. Rinn tries to help Aedhan who is distraught about the time that he lost whilst asleep for all those years.

Story:
The Tea Dragon Festival is the second book in a graphic novel series. I haven't read the first book but I did not feel that that impaired my enjoyment of this story at all. This book follows a young girl named Rinn who wishes to be a cook. She lives in a village where there are small dragons, named Tea Dragons. One day she goes out to collect mushrooms and she finds a dragon, called Aedhan. Aedhan was sent to the village to protect it and to watch over festivals but somehow he fell asleep for eighty years! We follow them as Aedhan meets her family and the village, we discover why Aedhan fell asleep for a long time and as the characters help Aedhan to come to terms with the time that he missed.

Diversity:
This book was just an adorable and delightful read. It featured American Sign Language as the head cook in the village is deaf. It is mentioned that dragons can change gender and it is alluded to that two of the characters may be in a male-male relationship. I loved the representation in this book and as a book that is aimed at the middle grade market, it is lovely to have such diversity in literature for younger readers.

Graphics:
The illustrations in this book were absolutely beautiful. I stopped and admired more than one of the panels to look at how the sky was drawn and at the features of the whimsical animals.

Characters:
I loved all of the characters in this book. It was a cute and friendly story. Rinn and Aedhan were friendly and well-developed. I was even hoping for a romance between them (which may or may not have been alluded to towards the end of the book). Rinn's grandmother was sweet and Lesa, the head cook was kind and creative. Hesekiel, a Sylke was comical and interesting and the tea dragons were so cute and cool.

Favourite quote:
"Just because something comes easily to you, does not mean it has no value. You find it effortless because you love it, and that is why it is your gift."

Final thoughts:
I loved this book! It was a cute and quick read with beautiful graphics and a wonderful story. The only negative is that I wish that it was longer! One part of the story was shown and over very quickly so I felt that that should have been expanded upon. I would also loved to see what happens to these characters next. More please!

Star rating: 5/5 stars



*An advanced copy of this book was kindly sent to me to review, however, all opinions are my own.

5 comments:

  1. I loved the 1st book, which is F/F based and bursting with diversity! :)

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  2. I adored the first Tea Dragon book and am super excited to pick up the ARC of this one soon! So glad you loved it and really hope you check out the first one (I think you can still access it for free as a webcomic online).

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Enjoy reading it, it truly is a lovely book.

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  3. I have heard so many amazing things about these books, and they look so adorable.
    Fantastic review :)
    Cora | http://teapartyprincess.co.uk/

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