Beware the Dragon and the Nozzlewock: A Graphic Novel Poetry Collection Full of Surprising Characters!

A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
Finalist, 2025 Washington State Book Award for Books for Young Readers
Evanston Public Library 101 Great Books for Kids
A 2025 White Raven Selection, International Youth Library Foundation
★ Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ The Horn Book, starred review

Perfect for fans of Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, award-winning author Vikram Madan’s new poetry collection features delicious vocabulary, hilarious poems, and a full-color graphic novel format!

Vikram Madan packs this whimsical poetry collection with surprise twist after surprise twist and a host of unusual characters. In these pages, you’ll meet ghost guppies (and the brave girl who creates them), Stan the Slouching Man™ who’ll teach you blackbelt slouching, oozing dinosaurs called squishosaurs, a suspicious dragon, and the Nozzlewock (a nose with super-vacuum strength), among many other memorable heroes. Recurring characters and subplots in the art weave the poems together, adding to the merriment. This quirky collection in full-color graphic novel format begs to be read over and over again.