About this item
For fans of How to Train Your Dragon comes a new tale about dragon Miss Drake and her human pet Winnie, by a two-time Newbery Honor winner, featuring illustrations by Caldecott Honor winner Mary GrandPr. Three-thousand-year-old Miss Drake has arranged to send her dear pet Winnie to The Spriggs Academy, an extraordinary school for humans and magicals alike. Winnie is particularly excited about magic class and having Sir Isaac Newton for science. She's also making new friends - and frenemies. . . . When a plot to snatch Winnie from her San Francisco home is uncovered, Miss Drake is ready to use all her cunning and magic to thwart it. Not that feisty Winnie needs the help. . . . As a team, the intrepid duo you first met in A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans is unstoppable! With equal doses of whimsy and humor, Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder have crafted an enchanting story about true friendship. Praise for A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter* "Yep and Ryder keep the magic coming with their whimsical fantasy, enhanced by Grandpr's sweet drawings. The story positively vibrates with fun." - Kirkus Reviews* " Lighthearted episodes of unusual school lessons and field trips, illustrated by GrandPr's winsome spot art, are grounded by Miss Drake's more serious encounters with the goons...a gratifying development as this buoyant, fantastical series continues." - The Horn Book Review Praise for A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans* *"Warm humor, magical mishaps, and the main characters' budding mutual respect and affection combine to give this opener for a planned series a special shine that will draw readers and leave them impatient for sequels." - BOOKLIST , Starred* "The tale is alternately comical, suspenseful and sometimes sweetly emotional." - Kirkus Reviews* "Miss Drake's arch narration and the sharp back-and-forth between the characters create an enchanting story, accented by GrandPr's whimsical black-and-white spot illustrations." - Publishers Weekly* "With a black-and-white spot illustration opening most chapters, an engaging narrator, and a consistently fluid writing style, this title makes a fine dragon choice for readers." - School Library Journal
About the Author
Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco. Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph. D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
