The Dragon's Pearl, by Julie Lawson and Paul Morin.

This is one of those lavishly illustrated children's books that you, as a parent, kind of want to frame and hang on a wall, but your kids sort of shrug at until they reach just the right age, at which time they become magical grimoires.

At least that's what I'm hoping.

Daughter sort of shrugged off this story and fell asleep halfway through our reading, but I was utterly captivated by the bittersweet adventures of Xiao Sheng and the wealth of Chinese dragon lore in this book. The author's a globe-trotting Canadian lady who's spent time in China, so she knows a thing or two about river legends (and in the Far East, dragons and rivers go together like white and rice).

But it was really the illustrations that grabbed me. Morin is another Canadian -- and one of those footloose backpacker types with the knack for finding wonderful sights and turning them into gorgeous visions. He's one of those mixed-media painters like Dave McKean or Tracie Noles-Ross who stir a little collage in with the paints, giving the pictures this sense of texture and nostalgia and I'm starting to talk like an art critic more than an armchair children's book reviewer so I'll stop now. But it does *look* like magic and memory, and OK, really, I'll stop.

Anyway, the book is good, it'll probably fly over a 4-year-old's head, but your average 2nd grader oughtta eat it up. As well as your goofier-than-average middle-aged fantasy & folklore fan. I'm hoping it lasts at our local library for a few more years.

Available at Amazon, over here.