A rather precious story of a young child who is unexpectedly crowned King, and ends up letting out all manner of dangerous Beasts from a magical tome. It has a rather annoying tone - I can just see the adults going 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' over the things that passed over the head of the child the story was being read to. And, when a dragon eats someone, that person should stay dead. Kids can handle that.

(Review of the non-abridged story. There's no call to abridge such a short piece.) ( )

This is a charming book with the feel of a classic fairy tale and more beautiful illustrations from Inga Moore (The House in the Woods). ( )

The genre of this book is fantasy and it is a fictional book. The artwork looks hand-drawn and colored using colored pencils. It is about a little boy who becomes King and he still has to be taken care of. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister looked after him and showed him the former King's (his great-great-great-great-great grandfather) library. They told the little King that his great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a wizard so they advised him to stay away from his books. However, the book, The Book of Beasts particularly sparked his interest. They hid the book from him, but the little boy soon found the book and read it. He found that the creatures on the pages were becoming real and flying out of the book. First, it was a butterfly, then a blue bird. Then the little boy saw a dragon on the next page and quickly shut the book, but it was too late. The dragon escaped and the king felt he should do something. Finally, he released a Manticora but that didn't work. Then, he let the Hippogriff out of the book and this was a beautiful winged horse creature. He finally saved the day by helping the King capture the dragon. At the end, the white Hippogriff accepted the position of the King's own Hippogriff. There are many pages in this book and many words per page, so I would say the reading level is probably third grade. The curricular connections are: Kings, royalty, disobeying, dragons, Hippogriffs, and adventure. ( )

Abridged, illustrated version of Nesbit's story about Lionel, a small boy, who, to his great surprise, is made King.

A wonderful story with beautiful artwork. ( )