Who knew it would be so hard to find the perfect name for my new dragon?

A dear neighbor and friend knew how I had relished the Lunar Year of the Dragon—my year! Christmas arrived with only two months left in my special year. To help celebrate during this auspicious time, my friend sewed a huge three-foot purple, pink, and green stuffed dragon for me. I swallowed the lump in my throat when I blurted out my astonishment and gratitude for the time and effort spent creating this whimsical masterpiece.

This magnificent creation needed the perfect name—one that represented a kind, compassionate, and fun creature.

And so began my research. I googled dragons from mythology, folktales, and history looking for the name of a benevolent dragon. However, the dragons I found were only noted for their negative attributes.

I changed focus and began exploring current children’s picture books. Bingo! I found a blurb for UK author Maryam A. Khayra’s book, The Lost Girl and The Kind Dragon: Short Story for Bedtime.

The blurb reflected the sentiments of my Dachshund Tall Tales:

“Children will learn that goodness lies in the heart, not the scales. Let the magical story cast its spell, and plant the seeds of empathy and goodwill in your child’s mind. This uplifting tale of a noble dragon’s gallant friendship will spread its wings in your heart and remind us all that kindness is what truly matters.”

Yes! Now, I just needed to peek into Amazon’s “Look Inside” pages and find out the dragon’s name. Alas! Although the book had only been published in November 2023, it was no longer in print and there were no “Look Inside” pages available. What to do?

I posted on Facebook asking if anyone had this book. Friends from the UK said they would keep an eye out for it in used bookstores. Our can-do local Edmonds Bookshop did a search to no avail. I checked online used bookshops like Abe. The book seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

It seemed my fabulous dragon would remain nameless.

My dragon-creator neighbor suggested I look up all publications by author Maryam A. Khayra. And the mystery about the out-of-print year-old book was solved.

A different edition with a new cover and title but the very same story was published in November 2023. The author did a trial run with two cover arts and titles. The newly discovered cover and title were significantly more inviting. Khayra changed The Lost Girl and The Kind Dragon: Short Story for Bedtime to The Enchanted Journey of Drako and Lily: Discovering the Magic of Kindness and Bravery. The former cover showed the dragon and girl standing next to each other. The Enchanted Journey … shows the girl riding on the dragon’s back with both of their expressions full of anticipation and excitement. The new illustration begs the shopper to pick up the book, flip through the pages, and purchase it—which I did!

Back to my quest for the perfect name for my stuffed dragon. First, I found the name Drako in Khayra’s book. Then on my recent trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico I discovered the dragon constellation, Drako, just as my Lunar Year of the Dragon was ending. Clearly its name would be Drako!

The name finding saga continued when chatting at dinner with friends, I shared about the challenge of finding a story about a kind dragon. My eyebrows rose and my jaw dropped as they shared how they had written a short movie script a few years ago with a kind happy protagonist dragon named Grin!

Dear readers, may I introduce you to Drako Grin Jones!