Tatsu the Dragon

Book excerpt: This multicultural children's book tells a mythical Japanese tale about dragons and adventure. Tatsu wasn't a real dragon. Jiro and Zenji made him for a festival parade, out of bamboo hoops and cloth. But as soon as he was finished, he began to feel like a real dragon, even though he didn't have any wings. When the magic balloon man blew him up so he could slither around, and gave him a tin horn for a voice, Tatsu thought it was time for him to go out and rescue a beautiful maiden in distress. That was how he met Kiku and the wicked Chief Executioner; and how, in the end, he got his wings. Young readers can follow Tatsu on his adventures all over Japan, from the Fire Festival on an island in the Inland Sea (where he was mistaken for a fire demon), to the top of an erupting volcano, in an exciting story set in the authentic Japan of feudal times.