Dragon Folding

Christopher Cheng

Lucia Masciullo

Puffin, 2024

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781761340949

In a fractured old house with a wiggly sign lived a bent old man, alone. He was grumpy. He was crochety. He never smiled …  and he was always talking to himself. He ate the same lunch. He wore the same clothes, and he hadn’t shaved for a very long time.  He even had hairs growing out his nose. 

But it wasn’t always this way…

Not so long ago, before Mrs Singer went away, the old man baked delicious cakes, had an outstanding collection of dragons that sparkled in the sun and had a magnificent dragon tree in his front yard.  All the locals called his house Dragon Hall and they loved to visit – but now no one came because nothing they did helped and he shunned them with his crankiness.  That is, until one day, Evan knocked on his door.  

As much as this is a story about “the magic that can come from the innocence of a child”, it is also a story about the path we travel when our lives are touched by unimaginable grief as nothing has any meaning or relevance any more, despite the best intentions and endeavours of those who love us and surround us.  It is a journey we travel alone and at our own pace, but ,as novelist Victor Hugo said, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”.  For Mr Singer, the first glimmer of dawn is a little boy wanting help to fold a paper dragon, something Mr Singer was an expert at, but for each person it is different and the power of this book, which I suspect reflects the author’s own recent devastating loss, is two-fold.  Not only does it teach the young reader that if someone they love is grumpy and crochety and stuck in their ways, it is not something that they have said or done, but just the impact of the loss on the person themselves.  And that if they, themselves, are impacted by such loss, as sadly so many are, then all those grumpy, crochety, stay-in-bed feelings are natural and part of the process of grieving.  But just as the illustrations of Mr Singer move from shades of grey to colour as he gradually finds his purpose again, so too will their lives.  One day, they too, will find the joy in folding dragons again.

There are often requests to teacher librarian forums for books to help little ones deal with death and grieving, and for my money, this one that is so personal for the author, and whose timing was so personal for me, is one of the best.  A must-have in the collection to share when the time is right.