The Dancing Dragon

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

These six books by Beulah Homan are a strange mixture of raw talent,
so-so formatting, and weak editing. Homan’s prose is unique. Her
narratives contain intriguing side themes and dashes of natural history,
folklore, and humor. Unfortunately, her sentence structure often cries
out for revision, and clichés like “rain was coming down in
bucketfuls” land with a thunk.

The formatting is definitely “no frills.” Jane Striker and Madeline
Roski supply black ink artwork and one-color cover illustrations for the
books. Roski’s work is amateurish at best. Striker’s sketches are
competent but not inspired.

The books range from anthropomorphic animal tales to short stories
about humans. In Big Frog in Little Puddle, Nuli the big frog finds
himself being constantly followed and imitated by Doppleganger, a pesky
little frog. Nuli becomes so irked he runs away to another pond, only to
suffer a series of droll misadventures.

In The Brown Teddy Bear, a young girl named Lucy finds a teddy bear
while strolling through a meadow. Because she doesn’t have any toys of
her own, Lucy becomes very attached to the brown teddy. Weeks later, at
an Easter party, another little girl claims the toy as her own. Lucy
tearfully returns the bear, but a happy ending is just around the
corner.

In Caruso, the Young Goldfinch, a budding songbird’s voice is so
sweet that his goldfinch parents name him “Caruso.” One day, while
Caruso is learning to fly, a sudden attack by a hungry crow frightens
him so much that he forgets how to sing. He retreats to a lonely cave
where another terrifying experience forces him to regain his singing
voice.

The Dancing Dragon focuses on a boy named Drew who lives with a
housekeeper in Canada. Drew’s actor parents are thousands of miles
away in England. He misses them very much and his loneliness manifests
itself as a sinister dragon

that visits him every night through an open window.

In Puddy Cat, a stray kitten is befriended by a farm boy named Morgan.
Although Morgan’s father believes that cats belong in barns, the
kitten is allowed to stay with Morgan in the farmhouse. The kitten,
dubbed “Puddy Cat,” lives the life of a pampered cat until an
emergency launches her, unwilling and unprepared, into the winter
wilderness.

In Silk Parachutes, a young storekeeper and his English war bride find
a silk worm stowing away in a shipment of Chinese silk lanterns. They
feed and care for the silk worm, who returns their kindness

in an unexpected way. Exhibiting a more mature style than the other
books, this story indicates Homan’s growth as a writer. For all their
flaws, these books are still well worth a read. Recommended.