A Christmas Dragon
By: Larry J. McCloskey
178 pages • ISBN 978-1775352525
Danny and Zigo O'Neill really love Christmas, usually. It used to be the best time to play hockey, decorate the house, get presents, eat scrumptious food, and escape adult attention as their parents' friends and relatives visit their home. But this year is different. This year Christmas is turning out to be complicated, and trouble seems to find them everywhere they go.
Zigo has been picked to sing solo at both the Christmas concert and Midnight Mass. But his stomach hurts whenever he thinks about facing an audience. Trouble gets worse when Danny loses a bet rigged by the neighbourhood bullies. At the full moon Danny has to break into Bernice Lehibou's house to prove that she really is the Wicked Witch of Westboro. And just when the brothers think that their trouble can't get any worse, they are catapulted 50 years into the future. Not only are the houses, cars, and people truly weird in Futureland, but they are challenged to help Father O'Malley save the church and school, made to sing in the Christmas concert, and are completely on their own trying to find their way back to the present. Even if they could find their way back, everything has to happen in time for their own Christmas concert, before Dad gets mad and Mom starts to worry.
Larry McCloskey lives in Ottawa with his three daugthers, two dogs and one wife. He is co-founder of Dog-Eared Books.