A family adventure in four parts

The Last Dragon's Egg

Twenty-two chapters · a knocking stone, a dragon called Biscuit, and the long road to where she belongs

The lightning hit Grandpa's barn at ten past eleven. Long after midnight, Toby heard something knocking inside the wall, three knocks at a time.

Josie and Toby are spending the summer at their grandfather's farm while their mother is in hospital with the new baby. Behind the stones of the broken barn, wrapped in an old army blanket, they find a warm stone the size of a pumpkin, and when Toby knocks on it, it knocks back. What hatches eats iron, grows by the week and cannot be hidden for long. Collectors with brass nets come looking, and the children set out north with Grandpa, by cart and canal boat and over the moor, to find where Biscuit came from and to decide what she is owed. Written for children about 8 and up and the grown-ups reading with them, straight through or a chapter a night.

Twenty-two chapters · four parts · about four hours · for readers about 8 and up