Max is the youngest brother and as usual, the brunt of all jokes. When he shows up in the middle of his brothers’ croquet game, trailing an imaginary cloud dragon and rhyming his words to produce a rainstorm, his brothers hoot. But Max has the last laugh when everyone takes shelter from the dragon’s storm—under his umbrella. Kulikov’s children are real kids, messy hair, dirty fingernails, Crocs and all. Mix in dragons, dinosaurs, cloud figures, and silly rhymes, and what do you get? Max’s Dragon combines all these ele ments to create a satisfying portion of imaginative play and a healthy dose of wish fulfillment . lmp

Max is looking for words that rhyme. His dragon is in his wagon – or was, for now its tail has left a trail, which Max follows. He finds an umbrella on the ground— "Found, ground," he says, while his older brothers mock him for believing in dragons and sitting under an umbrella when it isn't even raining. But Max believes in possibilities—and when he can show his brothers not only a dragon in the stormy clouds but also a dinosaur, they begin to come round. When Max demonstrates the power of his rhyming words to tame the dinosaur and the dragon and make the rain come, he wins them over completely.

With amusing wordplay and beguiling illustrations, Kate Banks and Boris Kulikov celebrate language and imagination in a collaboration that is bound to be oodles of fun for everyone. This title has Common Core connections.