Knight-napped! (Dragonbreath Series #10)

by Ursula Vernon

Overview

In the tenth book of the series perfect for Dork Diaries and Wimpy Kid fans, this dragon will storm a castle, battle a knight, and stand up to any bully!

What does Danny Dragonbreath do when his super-annoying cousin Spencer gets kidnapped by knights? First, he thinks about how nice and quiet Thanksgiving would be without Spencer. Then, of course, Danny goes off to rescue him, with his cohorts Wendell and Christiana by his side. Their action-packed mission involves a dirty dungeon, a very squelchy moat, a big surprise for Christiana . . . and jousting galore! The hilarious Dragonbreath series matches up classic middle grade humor with comic panels. It's guaranteed to make you laugh until smoke comes out of your nose!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803738492
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	01/06/2015
Series:	Dragonbreath Series , #10
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	620L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Ursula Vernon is a dragons-rights activist and full-time artist and writer, whose work has won a Hugo and been nominated for an Eisner Award. Her Dragonbreath books have received many awards, including An IRA/CBC Chidren's Choice, two Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year for Children Awards, and an Indie Next List Pick. She lives with her husband in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Read an Excerpt

The bird was large and gray and had a purplish-greenish shine across its feathers. It was definitely a pigeon.

It was also very definitely sitting on Danny’s head.

“Technically it’s a rock dove,” said Wendell the iguana helpfully. “Columba livia, to be exact. They nest on cliffs, and when people started building skyscrapers, the pigeons starting nesting on those too.”

“Wendell,” said Danny.

“Yes?”

“Why is there a pigeon on my head?”

Wendell rubbed his chin. “Good question. Maybe it thought your head looked like the Empire State Building?”

Danny Dragonbreath had enough problems. He was the only dragon in a school full of frogs and lizards, he couldn’t breathe fire very well, and he was pretty sure that he had just flunked a pop quiz. Having a pigeon on his head was one problem too many.

He tried to pull it off. It latched on to his scales with its feet and made happy pigeon noises.

“I think it likes you,” said Wendell.

“Get it off!” yelled Danny. “Lunch will be over any minute now! I can’t go back to class with a pigeon on my head!”

“Errr . . . tell everyone it’s a hat?” Wendell flapped his hands at the pigeon. “Go on, shoo!”

The two-minute bell rang in the distance.

The pigeon finally got the hint and took off, flapping. “Coo!” it said reproachfully.

“That was weird,” said Wendell. “Even by your standards.”

Danny rubbed his head and grumbled.

They were nearly back to class when a familiar shape loomed in front of them.

“Hey, Dorkbreath,” said Big Eddy.

“Big Eddy,” said Danny.

He poked Danny in the chest with one finger. Since Big Eddy was a Komodo dragon, his fingers were the size of bratwurst. “You a dancer now, Dorkbreath? You gonna invent a new dance and put a video on the Internet so we can all laugh at you?”

He poked Danny again.

“We’re gonna be late . . .” mumbled Wendell, trying to slide sideways around Big Eddy.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Obviously there was a pigeon on my head. You need to pay closer attention.”

Big Eddy blinked.

The school bully was very large but not very bright. It was sometimes possible to stun him by uttering something so unexpected that he took a few minutes to process it.

“Pigeon?” he said.

“It’s a new thing. Head-pigeoning. I thought you would have heard of it by now.”

“Head-pigeoning?”

The bell rang again.

“Gotta go!” said Danny, and ran off to find out how badly he’d flunked the quiz.

Danny and Wendell got off at the bus stop near Danny’s house. The dragon got about five steps before something warm and feathery settled on his head.

“It’s the pigeon again, isn’t it?” said Danny grimly.

“Yep,” said Wendell. “Or a pigeon, anyway. I suppose there could be more than one.”

This was not reassuring.

Danny hunched his shoulders and stalked down the sidewalk. There was probably no point in trying to get it off until he was close enough to the house to duck inside.

A passing car slowed down to stare at him.

Danny was no stranger to having cars slow down to stare at him, but usually it was because he was doing something awesome like standing on a rooftop wearing a cape or building a giant snow platypus. Merely having a pigeon on his head didn’t qualify.

“Wendell! Hey, Wendell!”

Wendell slowed down. Danny sighed and turned around.

Christiana Vanderpool, the only person in school nerdier than Wendell, ran down the sidewalk after them. “Hey, Wendell, can I borrow that book on the Burgess Shale?”

“Sure!” said Wendell.

“The what?” said Danny.

“Very old rock. Had lots of squirmy things fossilized in it. Stuff nobody’s ever seen on earth before. Or since, for that matter.” She paused. “Did you know there’s a pigeon on your head?”

“Columba livia—”

“Yeah yeah, so Wendell said.”

“Quite a nice specimen,” said Christiana. She stood on her tiptoes and scratched the pigeon’s head. “Who’s a good widdle pigeon, den?”

“You want the pigeon? It’s yours. You can teach it to fly mazes or something.” Danny tried to pry the pigeon off his head again. It flapped hard a few times, then snuggled down against his scales.

“I think it likes you,” said Christiana.

“Yeah, it sat on my head at recess too.”

“Is this why Big Eddy was wandering around with bread crumbs on his head? I was wondering about that, but I didn’t want to ask him.”

“Did it work?” asked Wendell.

“Well . . . sort of. . . .” She scratched her head. “He didn’t get pigeons, he got starlings. A bunch of them. And you know what they do when they get excited . . .”

“Squawk?” guessed Danny.

She gave him a look. “No. They poop.”

“The pigeon followed Danny home from school,” said Wendell proudly. “And it hasn’t pooped on him once.”

“Maybe it’s a homing pigeon,” said Christiana. “Although they usually go to places, not to people. There are reports of homing pigeons flying thousands of miles with important messages. They navigate by magnetic fields.”

“Hey, that’s a good thought,” said Wendell. “We should check it for messages.”

“Why would someone send a homing pigeon after me?” asked Danny. “I don’t know any pigeons.” He paused. “Unless . . . there’s an evil genius about to take over the world using pigeons, and this one’s just the first, and pretty soon everybody will have a pigeon on their head and then we’ll be helpless when he deploys his orbital moon laser!”

“Or her orbital moon laser,” said Christiana. “I hear more women are breaking into mad science all the time.”

“There’s a note tied to its leg,” said Christiana. “C’mon, little guy, let me just untie this . . . there’s a good pigeon . . .”

The note was tiny and rolled up like a scroll. She smoothed it out and handed it to Danny. “It’s addressed to you.”

Danny scratched his head, moving the pigeon slightly. “Okay . . .”

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Dragonbreath: An IRA/CBC Chidren's Choice
"Great stuff for reluctant and rapacious readers alike."--BCCB
Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs: NYPL Children's Books 2010: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children
"Delightful."--School Library Journal
Dragonbreath: Curse of the Were-Weiner: An Autumn 2010 Kids' Indie Next List Pick, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children

• "[An] impossibly droll escapade."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Dragonbreath: Lair of the Bat Monster: A Spring 2011 Indie Next List Pick

Editorial Reviews

Dragonbreath:  An IRA/CBC Chidren's Choice
"Great stuff for reluctant and rapacious readers alike."—BCCB
Dragonbreath:  Attack of the Ninja Frogs:  NYPL Children's Books 2010:  100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children
"Delightful."—School Library Journal
Dragonbreath:  Curse of the Were-Weiner:  An Autumn 2010 Kids' Indie Next List Pick, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children
* "[An] impossibly droll escapade."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Dragonbreath:  Lair of the Bat Monster:  A Spring 2011 Indie Next List Pick

Dragonbreath:  An IRA/CBC Chidren's Choice
"Great stuff for reluctant and rapacious readers alike."—BCCB
Dragonbreath:  Attack of the Ninja Frogs:  NYPL Children's Books 2010:  100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children
"Delightful."—School Library Journal
Dragonbreath:  Curse of the Were-Weiner:  An Autumn 2010 Kids' Indie Next List Pick, Kirkus Reviews 2010 Best Books for Children
* "[An] impossibly droll escapade."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Dragonbreath:  Lair of the Bat Monster:  A Spring 2011 Indie Next List Pick

From the Publisher