ARC Review – The Tea Dragon Festival

From Goodreads:

From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.

After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives — and eventually her own.

This is just completely adorable. This gorgeous little graphic novel has such a beautiful message of love, friendship, embracing your heritage to finding new passions. It is just a fabulous world, that made me want a Tea Dragon even though I am not a tea drinker. It is filled with diversity representation including POC rep ,disability rep and varying sexual orientations. The colour palette and artwork is just stunning and gives a calming and centring air to the story that just leaves you with such a positive and refreshed feeling, just like a good cup of tea (I guess). It’s Just a brilliant little read.

From Goodreads:

Rinn has grown up with the Tea Dragons that inhabit their village, but stumbling across a real dragon turns out to be a different matter entirely! Aedhan is a young dragon who was appointed to protect the village but fell asleep in the forest eighty years ago. With the aid of Rinn’s adventuring uncle Erik and his partner Hesekiel, they investigate the mystery of his enchanted sleep, but Rinn’s real challenge is to help Aedhan come to terms with feeling that he cannot get back the time he has lost.

This is more of a companion or prequel to the Tea Dragon Society, the series could easily be read in any order without the reader loosing their understanding of the stories. You would just be introduced to some characters a little earlier. The Tea Dragon Festival is just as gorgeous in its writing, artwork and colour palette as the Tea Dragon Society. It adds a lot more to the lore of the Tea Dragons, we meet true Dragons and we get a glimpse into the past of a couple of the characters from the Tea Dragon Society. It also maintains the same level of diversity. The inclusion of a deaf character and sign language is done in such a tasteful way, having a mix of those who communicate solely by signing and those that combine speech and signing is excellent. The message is still as heartwarming and it still leaves the reader in that beautiful calm place the first did. I am hoping that we keep getting glimpses into the world of the Tea Dragons.