The Princess and the Lantern Dragon a personalized book with your child as the hero

Princess Juniper lived in a white-and-rose castle on a snowy hill. Its round towers had roofs of blue slate, and beyond its walls the pine forests climbed up and up into dark, quiet hills.

Every winter the castle held a festival of lanterns. In the longest nights of the year, everyone gathered in the courtyard, the lanterns were lit one by one, and the whole hill glowed like a jar full of fireflies. Juniper could hardly wait for it.

But one cold autumn night, something changed.

A long roar rolled down from the dark hills. In the kitchen the cook dropped a pan. Up in the great hall the king jumped to his feet.

"Shut the gates!" he called. "And pack the festival lanterns away. No festival while that creature is out there."

Juniper was in bed, but she was not asleep. She climbed onto the cushioned window seat, pulled her blanket round her shoulders and pressed her ear close to the cold glass. The moon was bright over the hills. The roar came again, long and wobbly.

Juniper tilted her head. It did not sound angry. It did not sound like something that wanted to frighten anybody. It sounded, she thought, like someone crying.

The next morning the great hall was full of worried voices. The cook was peeping out from under a table. The courtiers whispered in corners. The king paced up and down beside his plain wooden throne.

"We need a taller wall," he said. "A much taller wall."

Juniper tugged at his sleeve. "Has anybody asked why it roars?"

The hall went quiet. Nobody had.

"Then I would like to go and find out," said Juniper.

The king looked at her for a long time. Then he looked at the kind castle guard, who was standing by the door with a lantern on a staff. "Only with the guard," he said. "Every single step."

They set out at dawn. The path up the hill was white with frost, and every breath made a little cloud. Juniper carried a basket with a cloth over the top. Inside were baked apples and a roll of soft white bandages, just in case.

Her tummy felt wobbly. Being brave, she discovered, did not mean not being scared. It meant being scared and walking up the hill anyway.

Near the top, behind a ring of mossy rocks, they found a little cave. The guard held the lantern high, and they looked inside.

There was no monster in the cave.

There was a baby dragon.

It was no bigger than a big dog. Its scales were sky blue, its belly was cream, and its folded wings were soft and silvery. It was curled up tight, holding one front paw off the ground, and its big amber eyes were wet with tears.

"Oh," breathed Juniper. "You're not scary at all. You're scared."

Juniper remembered what the stable keeper had taught her about meeting frightened animals. Move slowly. Stay low. Speak softly. Don't stare into their eyes. Let them come to you.

So she knelt down a little way off, with the guard kneeling right beside her. She looked at the ground instead of at the dragon's face. She talked in her quietest, kindest voice. Then she took a baked apple from the basket and held it out on her flat, open palm, with her fingers out of the way.

The baby dragon sniffed. It crept a little closer. And a little closer. And then, very carefully, it nibbled the apple.

That was when Juniper saw it. Stuck in the dragon's paw was a big, sharp bramble thorn.

"That's why you roar," she whispered. "It hurts."

"I'll take it out," said the guard gently. "You keep it calm."

Juniper sat on a low rock and stroked the dragon's head. She hummed the lullaby her father hummed to her when she could not sleep. The guard held the paw very gently and, with one slow, steady pull, drew out the thorn. The dragon gave a tiny squeak and then a long, shaky sigh.

Juniper wrapped the paw in a soft white bandage, firmly but not too tight, and tied a little bow on top.

The dragon was too sleepy to walk anywhere. So Juniper and the guard gathered pine branches and made it a warm, springy bed at the back of the cave, and Juniper tucked her own blanket round it. "We'll come back tomorrow," she promised. "With breakfast."

They came back the next day, and the day after that, and every day for a week. The roaring stopped. The paw healed.

One morning, when Juniper and the guard started down the hill, the little dragon followed them.

At the castle, faces peeped from behind the gate and out of every window.

Juniper took the dragon's good paw and walked it through the open gate. "It's only a baby," she told everyone. "It roared because it was hurt and scared and all alone. We didn't need a taller wall. We needed to be kind."

The king came out of the crowd. Slowly, he knelt down in the snow, looked at the ground the way Juniper showed him, and held out an open palm. The little dragon sniffed it, and then pressed its warm nose into his hand.

The lanterns were unpacked that very afternoon.

On the night of the winter festival, the snowy courtyard was full of people. The lanterns hung high on a tall wooden arch, far above everyone's heads. The little dragon perched on top of the castle wall, and one by one it breathed a tiny, careful flame into each lantern, while all the children watched from a safe distance below.

The whole hill glowed.

The king put his arm round Juniper. "You were brave," he said, "brave enough to be kind."

And high on the castle wall, the little lantern dragon gave a happy, sparkling puff of warm air, and not one single person was afraid.