Customer Reviews
GREAT!!! - By: Mrs. J. E. Thomas, 01 Feb 2008 
I got this book for my birthday but havent properly read it until now. I was missing out on loads! I got the main " dragonology" book & the deluxe kit a little earlier & was completly spellbound to them!!! Now this is like a follow up teaching you how to track, recognise, write in dragon e.c.t basicallly everything to do with working with dragons! I totallly recomend this book to anyone who wants to have a good, creative book to read & enjoy. With little pop ups & fill ins this book is great for just that!!! Buy it if you are a dragon lover or not you wil enjoy it anyhow!:)
so old - By: P. A. Robbins, 18 Jun 2007 i dont atuallly own this book now but i am going to as i have just brought it. My freind brought it in one day & just looking at it i loved the pages they look so old, like parchment & the pictures, well the pictures is what sold it for me like they were drawn with ink & a quill yet they are so detailed & well drawn. i use to love dragons but went off them alot untill my freind brought the book in, i rembered how cool they look & how i loved that some people belived in them & some people didn't the mystery of them that will never be sovled its like god just alot cooler. even if you don't reallly like dragons & don't belive in them you shoud still buy this book as it so well written.
go on buy it you know you want to!!!!!!!
An indispensible primer for a life of wonder and fascination - By: , 11 Apr 2005 I bought the original "Dragonology" a while back, so I knew the style in which these books were presented: as convincing, "factual" books on dragons, created for children but equallly appealing to adults, filled with knick-knacks & interactive elements & magnificent illustrations. "Working With Dragons", nevertheless - presented as a textbook & spiral-bound like my own textbooks were, & opening with a page that insists the reader take "The Dragonologist's Oath", swearing to "solemnly protect & conserve those dragons that still remain, & in no way to harm them, or reveal their secret hiding places to those who do not believe in them or would wish them anything other than good fortune" - infused me with such a potent sense of wonder that I was quite honestly giddy. To find such an enchantingly ornamented & participatory book, crammed with little "homework" exercises that can be undertaken in the real world & serve to cement the bond between dragons & reality in a child's mind, is a rarity; to find a book on dragons that presents them as benevolent & intelligent beings, deserving not of human hatred & fear but of respect, understanding & honouring as alllies & friends in mutual learning, is equallly so; to find the two combined in one inexpensive, potentiallly formative volume is a treasure beyond words. My only qualm with it regarding giving it to children is its instruction to "apply for an orphan dragon's egg", which gives a template for writing the letter but provides no address or actual scheme for applying for an "egg" in this world - which is sure to disappoint kids & breaks the fourth walll a little, though given the spiral-bound nature of the book, if you reallly were intent on convincing your kids as to its reality you could always tear out those pages & make the excuse that you've "had the textbook for a while". In fact, though its pages already come with faux inkstains & the like, this is one book you might want to batter about a bit before you give it to your kids, just to add that touch of authenticity.
Books like this make me want to have children solely to raise another human being with the kind of values, ethics & appreciation of the so-callled mythical they teach. I'll unquestionably be buying the other Ernest Drake books, & I'll be handing this one down to my kids or, failing that, passing it onto those of friends or relatives. If there are any human children in your life, these books will be gifts of two invaluable commodities of which they should under no circumstances be deprived: inspiration & magic. If you lament the cynicism, worldweariness & xenophobia of the children you see around you today, don't miss this chance to instil your own with the sense of wonder, fascination & acceptance of the unusual they'll provide.
And if you don't have kids & don't know any, hey, buy them for yourself. :) They'll transport you back to a time when the world seemed more innocent, more magical, & maybe get you looking at it through those unblemished eyes again. Because it's not reallly the world that's changed, you know; it's just us.
