Reading Dragons and Friends is a reading incentives program for public libraries. I started working on it in 2019 and 3 years later it has grown beyond my library. Before I get into showing you the work I have done on the program I want you to know that your library can get all the files to run this program, for free. Email me at mthompson (at) doverlibrary.org from your library email, and I will send you the link to the Google Drive with all of the files.
I did not start this program on my own. Liz Strauss the Teen Librarian and I started the program in 2019 based on a request from Claire Kandle the Children's Librarian at Dover Public Library at that time. Liz had a fantastic idea for dragons that would hatch and grow up as a child read. We chose dragons because our children's library is medieval themed and has a dragon mascot named Big Louie. I drew the line art for the dragons, and Liz and I colored a variety of thematic dragons together. At the start of the program the cards were collectable, but not playable. The kids absolutely loved it!
In 2020 I had been working on a simple card game for a personal project and I realized that I could use what I was working on with the Reading Dragons and make the cards more versatile. So I revamped the card art so we could play a color based version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you are familiar with Pokemon types this will make perfect sense to you. Blue (water) beats Red (fire), Red (fire) beats Green (plants), Green (plants) beats Blue (water).
In 2021 I added art for 2 mythical creatures, griffins and unicorns (alicorns). I also organized all of the files on a Google Drive so we could share this program with other libraries. Liz and I presented the program at the Ohio Library Council Conference and made all of the printable and editable files, available to attendees. We later shared it in the Library Programming Facebook Group to reach more libraries.
If you want to learn how you can use this program at your library, watch this short presentation. >LINK<