It’s been six years since Dragon first appeared in Jean E. Pendziwol’s fire safety picture book, No Dragons for Tea. The book quickly became a favourite of parents, teachers, and librarians looking for a fun, engaging approach to teaching basic fire safety. This time around Pendziwol takes Dragon and his safety-savvy young friend to the beach.

The book’s layout, design, and format are nearly identical to those of its predecessor, varying only in the content. The author has cleverly plotted out all of the basic rules of water safety within the action of an entertaining story about a treasure hunt. The story itself is presented in rhyming couplets, followed by a short poem that children can easily learn to remember the points presented in the book. Pendziwol includes a list of additional aquatic safety issues for adults to discuss with children. Here, the author stresses that the most important aspect of water safety is always the watchful presence of an adult.

Martine Gourbault’s colourful pencil crayon illustrations are, once again, playful and expressive. Dragon is the same silly, likeable, bumbling character, while the nameless young girl has grown up ever so slightly to appeal to a wider age range of children.

The book is an ideal tool for teaching water safety basics to early elementary children and preschoolers. At home on public and elementary school library shelves, it should even find its way into aquatic centre collections for instructional use.