"Behavior not befitting the son of the Dragon King!" The Dragon King has sent his nine sons out to find their places in the world, but rumors abound -- each son is apparently as aimless as the next! One son does nothing but stare into space, another spends his day frolicking in a stream, another plays with fire, and still another hollers and yells from noon till night. The king realizes it's time to visit each son to see if the rumors are true. What he finds surprises him, for each son has a very special gift that continues to serve and enrich China's culture to this very day. Two-time Caldecott winner Ed Young brings us a legend of a very special parent recognizing the potential in his very special children, and in doing so, shows how a simple folktale shaped a visible part of Chinese culture. Grade 1-4–According to legend, the Dragon King had nine sons who, after leaving their father's house, seemed to be aimlessly frittering away their days. When the king goes to investigate, he discovers that what appears to be frivolity or laziness is masking a unique talent, and he helps each son to employ his talent productively. For example, because the second son, Chi Wen, constantly stares intently into the distance, he becomes a sentinel. Young then goes on to describe how that young man and his talent are still symbolically reflected in Chinese art and architecture. "And to this day, Chi Wen may still be found at the tops of buildings, a sentinel searching the distance for potential danger." The text is engrossing and includes an informative author's note. The illustrations, rendered in brush, ink, and cut paper, use softly smudged lines for the part of the story focused on the legend, and sharper, cleaner lines augmented by a minimal but dramatically effective use of color for the present-day segments. This elegant addition to folklore shelves should be a first purchase for most libraries. –Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Gr. 3-5. The Dragon King's nine sons have been sent forth to find their true callings. Unfortunately, they gravitate to activities that seem self-indulgent, such as breaking into song or "fuss[ing] about in the kitchen." Though initially distressed, the Dragon King realizes that each of his sons' interests can be parlayed into useful employment: his noisy son, for example, can keep musical instruments sounding "loud and true," and his sharp-eyed son can protect homes from danger, and so on. Although the story has a repetitive structure typical of folktales for younger readers, the text is long and requires a certain level of sophistication to make the conceptual leap between each son's role in the story and its corresponding significance in Chinese iconography (each of the nine scenarios concludes with a cut-paper example of real-world dragon ornamentation, much of which can evidently be traced to this legend). Even readers older than the traditional picture-book audience, though, may find that they lack the cultural context to fully appreciate the esoteric aspects of Young's treatment. The ink-wash portraits of the exuberant young dragons are probably reason enough to buy this book; readers of any age will marvel at how much Young can accomplish with just a few sinuous strokes of his brush. Jennifer Mattson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Ed Young is the illustrator of more than eighty books for children, seventeen of which he has also written. Most notably, he is the Caldecott Medalist for Lon Po Po and the Caldecott Honor recipient for both The Emperor and the Kite and Seven Blind Mice. Young lives in Westchester County, New York.