Product Description

The Reluctant Dragon (BBC Audio): Anton Lesser reads Kenneth Grahame's much-loved tale about a dragon who doesn't want to fight and the boy who becomes his friend.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1228 in Books
• Brand: Audio Books
• Published on: 2007-03-05
• Released on: 2007-03-05
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

The reluctant Dragon on cd- a very nice tale!
Wonderfully read by acclaimed actor Anton Lesser, Kenneth Grahams less known story about The Reluctant Dragon really comes to life. A very funny and sweet story, much different from the world-famous Wind in the Willows by the same author.
One cd with a total listening time at about an hour- makes perfect time for a bedtime story for the bigger child or for listening in the car whilst going shopping or for any shorter drive.
I reccomend this for any child who is not too big for fairy tales (wich of course also makes it VERY suitable for adults young at heart!!)-this one is a real winner!

I'm perfectly happy whit this tale
I am an English learner and usually listen to audiobook stories or tales in the car making my way to work or home. Up until now I used graded readers editions (from Cambridge or Oxford University press), but I decided to push it a step forward and try with some children's audiobook edited for English 'ears', not foreing ones. I've to say that although I've enjoyed 'The Reluctant Dragon' a lot, it's not as easy-lisening as graded edition I mentioned before. But, believe me, it's a beautiful story that worth all the time I'have (and will!!) spent on it.

Highly recommended.

OK but not great
I have to admit to being disappointed by this recording - it appealed because this has been one of my favourite stories ever since it was included in one of the bumper books anthologies that used to be a feature of Christmas presents for children in the 50s so I fell on this recording expecting a nice dose of nostalgia. Bad mistake. For a start it removes the beginning and end which sets it up as a story told to the Grahame children on a cold winter evening walk after finding tracks in the snow and then Anton Lesser indulges in the common actor's fault of assuming phony rural accents. The narrator's voice as a story teller should prevail over the actor's here and fails lamentably so that the whole atmosphere of the tale is lost.

If you really want to know the story of the reluctant dragon then read it in Kenneth Grahame's combined tales of his siblings and their childhood in "Dream Days" and "The Golden Age" and hear it from the voice in your head and give this sorry travesty a miss. The books are a wonderful evocation of a Victorian childhood lived by five orphans being brought up by an assortment of aunts and uncles - the Olympians with their incomprensible values and requirements for correct behaviour - to be undermined and subverted by any right-thinking child.