Dad's Dragon

A dragon to hold. A dad to come home to.The kid has a dragon. He's a stuffed animal in the daytime, and at night they fly. Then one night the kid finds Dad in the kitchen, talking fast and excited to nobody. Dad has a dragon too. His is named Peter the Lost, and Dad says his is real.Cups of water show up all over the house because Peter said to. Dad yells at the ceiling. A big, kind man comes to the door and takes Dad somewhere to rest. And the kid waits, with questions, with Mom, and with a soft green friend who he knows is just pretend.Dad's Dragon is a picture book about a parent with psychosis, told by his child. It gives the illness its name, shows a hospital stay as a place of rest and recovery, and lets Dad say the true, hard thing when he comes home, that he misses the friend his brain made up. Dad's dragon is never shown in the pictures. The reader sees only what the child sees.The ninth book in the Dad's Mental Health series. Each book ends with a short note for grown-ups. For reading together, ages 4 to 8.