Put simply this is a story about a young boy seeking answers about his family, with his very own little dragon by his side. It's all happening a few years after WW2, in Japan, in an alternative world where dragons exist and are people's companions. Whereas this concept and the setting is really cool, I'd appreciate some more worldbuilding - but I do know that this particular story wasn't focusing on that, so I understand why the author didn't put a bigger emphasis on that aspect. The book explores themes such as intergenerational trauma and guilt that life after the war brings, tackling loss and grief, meaning of friendships and the complex feelings that being biracial or a part of multiple cultures can envoke. I'd definitely classify this book as a historical fiction, a very character driven one. Based on the book's description I expected a bit more plot, more of that magic and adventure feeling to it, so I was a little bit disappointed when it turned out to be more focused on the characters and quite slow paced. I liked the use of japanese words in the text (which were translated, no worries), because that really helped with bringing the setting to life even more (especially in the audiobook version of the book, to which I've also listened to and liked it a lot!). I would appreciate some trigger warnings in the book's description though or at least at the very beginning, because it tackles quite some dark themes, such as illness of a grandparent, parent death, war, etc. I also don't really know how I feel about the book being a middle-grade just because it is told through a perspective of a young boy, it was much less lighthearted than I expected, tackled dark themes, and can most definitely be read into more in depth, if the reader so desires. It is truly beautifully written and I've stumbled on quite some quotes that I really like, such as those two:

"That's what hope it, I think. Remembering that there are stories we haven't told yet."

and

"Because talking helps. Things always seem simpler if you say them out loud. And eventually you stop talking and realize that if your sentence can end, so can your problems."

I'd definitely like to read more books from this author in the future.

A book about people and the dragons that they live with. Our lead protag swears that he remembers seeing big dragons in the sky and will do what he can do to find one so his grandpa can be happy again. A good look at an alternate post-WWII universe where magic exists.

This book is based twenty years after WWII and is in an alternate world where there are personal dragons that people have, which are almost a part of their souls. This basically can be interpreted in some deeper ways if the reader so chooses.
Kohei is our lead protagonist. He lives with his mother and grandfather. He has memories of big Ryū in the sky that he does not know the origin of. One thing he feels certain about is that if they were to come back, his grandfather would be happy again, and his mother would not keep saying everything is all right. Things have not been great at school either, for reasons that Kohei is unable to understand. It is only when he makes a tentative new friend that things start to move. He finds out that he is to have an American neighbour, and instead of individual Ryūs, they have a family one. He hopes to create a big enough one to bring his grandfather back to his original self.
Kohei starts to discover information that he did not have earlier. It is a good introduction to what life might have been like for a child in that time period in Japan. He has burning hopes that he keeps working towards, but with a focus that prevents him from seeing the bigger picture.
This was a different story, with varying pacing, and the entire story revolves around Kohei wanting to make his grandfather whole again. It was a short story with a lot packed into it. I think some children will find more to enjoy in this than others.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Great middle grade historical fiction story set in an alternate Japan about family, friendship and dragons.

The Lost Ryū was a moving story about intergenerational trauma and making sense of family legacies. The ryū and Western dragons were wonderfully woven into the story. They were well-developed characters, plot devices, and key elements of the world all in one. I loved our two main characters Kohei and Isolde. Both of them grow a lot over the course of The Lost Ryū and learn so much about how they view their roles within society and their families.

The Lost Ryū is a middle grade book that works on multiple levels for different ages of readers. I look forward to reading more books from Watanabe Cohen.

Thank you to Netgalley and Levine Querido for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Actually i love a book with a dragon story within, and this one is pretty good. I honestly felt enjoyed to start, but the more story went on, i felt it slow-paced, it didn't make me bored in the mid, tho. that's why i still could have finished it.

Though the journey of Kohei and Isolde to the ancestral home of ryu (dragon) was amazing but i feel that i still need more wow atmosphere that should have made me more impressed and higher strung, i need the mystery of dragons disappearance should be more forward.

Yet regardless of that, i pretty love the journey Kohei, Isolde and their cute dragons had been through for finding the big ryu to reveal the ancestral home of dragons and who truly Kohei's father was and what secret project his father had run before his death. Moreover, sense of heartwarming that made me delightful in the end.

This is a beautiful story, and the characters are so realistic and poignantly relatable. It's not a fully happy story, focused as it is on loss and grief, but it's a warm-hearted, celebratory work nonetheless.

This book is the proof that multigenerational pain truly runs deep and that it can be executed brilliantly, as a trope, through a fantasy book.

Kohei-kun was such an innocent child that just wanted his grandfather to get better, and I seriously wanted to wrap him in bubble wrap and protect him. His development through the book was evident, because we see him in the beginning of the book come across as insensitive and immature, while at the enda of the book he was more considerate of his entourage and how his actions have their conequences. Fortunately, he had Yuharu with him as an advisor but also as a friend, regardless if he didn't listen to her anxioys thoughts in the beginning. What also made him evolve was him meeting Isolde, because she was the one that made him realize the impact we have on others.

I loved the book for another reason: dragons and adventure. Dragons were one of my favorite mythical creatures since I was a child, and especially dragons as narrated and mentioned in Japanese Mythology. They always symbolised wisdom and power but also that situations in life may need a sacrifice, whether it is in knowledge or a memory. Moreover, the part of adventure is one of my favorite tropes in books in general, because it is easier for the character to evolve and be more cognitive of their goal and the problem they need to solve.

A book full of emotion and heart-fullfillment, I highly recommend it to anyone regardless of age! The book is out on the 14th of June!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

What a lovely story, the children and I cried at the end. A tale of loss and longing, secrets and misunderstandings. Set after WW11 in Japan and the aftermath of the feelings of a Japanese family and an American / Japanese/Jewish family. With Dragons !

Such a bittersweet story yet beautiful. I don't know how to describe it perfectly but this book is really got me crying. a soft, gentle and perfect tales to read before you going to sleep.

I really have a mixed feeling but in a good way. the writing is really simple yet can take you back to World War II and feeling a great loss. I thought this book at first it's more focus on the legends of Dragon but I was wrong. It's about a family, friendship, pain, secrets and all those event specially after nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The characters, setting, plot, pacing and narrative all is very well done. I really appreciate the author that makes us to learn not only the value but about cultural as well.

I really highly recommend this if you like historical genre with cultural element that has a legend in.

I’m not a very emotional person, but this book had me choked up within the first few chapters. In addition to Kohei’s lived traumas, the story depicts cultural and generational trauma in the post-World War II era in such a loving, remarkable way. This middle grade historical fantasy deals with some heavy topics in a way that is accessible to younger readers but is capable of resonating with older readers (teens and adults) as well. Oh, and did I mention there are dragons? Honestly, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring a little Japanese history (with dragons of course) and does not mind difficult themes and a younger point of view.

Twenty years ago, soon after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the big ryū disappeared. The only thing that remains of the big dragons that once roamed the streets and skies of Japan are the ryū, their much smaller cousins. Yet somehow, ten-year old Kohei has a memory of the big ryū as clear as any other memory he has. Kohei is not only certain that they still exist, but that finding one will be the key to making his grandpa, Ojisan, happy again. Unfortunately, Kohei and his ryū companion, Yuharu, have had little luck uncovering where the big ryū might have gone. When Isolde and her Yiddish-speaking dragon, Cheshire, move into the downstairs apartment, Kohei hopes that they might be the key to unlocking this mystery. But when Ojisan becomes seriously ill, time starts running out. Khoei and Isolde must look to their families' pasts for answers as they try to navigate the ramifications in the present and discover what happened to the big ryū before it’s too late.

There are so many layers to this book I don’t even know where to start! It really speaks volumes when a book written for a younger audience can deal with such difficult topics in such a gentle, beautiful way. From the very beginning, we know that Kohei is experiencing a lot of trauma in his life. His grandfather is an alcoholic who can be verbally abusive and is prone to violent outbursts, his mother is distant and tries to ignore his grandfather’s episodes, and his father died when he was very young. Despite this, Kohei has nothing but love for his family (especially his grandfather) and tries to understand them as best as a ten-year old can. All the while, we see Kohei experience and struggle to understand his own emotions whenever these hurts can no longer be repressed. The book does not shy away from or ‘dumb down’ any of Kohei’s experiences, yet it still feels likek an authentic ten-year old perspective. This is all without even mentioning Isolde’s experience or the rest of the book! It is masterfully handled and makes it all the more meaningful to see these characters grow throughout the story.

The story takes place in Japan approximately 20 years after the end of World War II. It is very much an historical account of Japan at this point in time and during the World War II era, but with dragons. Even 20 years later, Japan is still recovering from the war and is in a period of immense change as it tries to redefine itself as a country. It is a historical setting that I haven’t seen explored before and I really enjoyed it. Though I might be reading into things too much, I felt that there was a lot of symbolism surrounding the ryū and big ryū in general that worked in such harmony with both the setting and journey. Each of the ryū has a distinct personality that I love in addition to habits, abilities, and preferences that reflect their own family histories. Despite the fantasy elements, this story really holds up as an historical piece.

This book is a fantastic middle-grade magical realism story that imagines a version of our reality where dragons of all kinds exist and have impacted human history, while telling the story of Kohei's family during and after World War II. The premise sounds simple, but behind Kohei's quest to find a big dragon, the kind of which hasn't been seen in two decades, is a well-written story about Imperial Japan that's accessible to younger readers and serves as a great introductory point to those just learning what it was like when the monarchy was in complete power. The story was well-written, and even when characters spoke only in Japanese, it was easy to tell what was being said, which was unexpected.

There are a few flaws of the book, though it didn't impact my enjoyment of the story, although they were noticeable. My biggest grievance was that Isolde didn't have much purpose in the story--her being half-Japanese half-Jewish and moving to Japan seemed to be her only traits other than a general kindness (her frustrated outbursts come from being othered by people, and doesn't necessarily count)--and I think if Isolde wasn't there and Kohei had just taken Cheshire with him, not much would change the story.

There's also a couple of things that don't seem to get resolved at the end of the story--How does Kohei have a vivid memory of something his Ojiisan saw twenty years before (and how it is wrong?)? Why did Arima leave that message for Kohei's mother after his father died? What did Kohei's mom mean when she said that Ryuuji's gifts weren't free? These not being resolved didn't really make the book worse, it's just a bit unsatisfying to not have the answers to them.

I liked this book because it had lots of detail and I am interested in dragons. I hope this book will become a graphic novel because I would love to see the dragons.

A young boy in post-WWII Japan is on a search to find a large ryu to make his sick grandfather happy again.

A quick, cute story with good representation (Japanese and Jewish) with themes of friendship, family, and trauma.

I had a hard time believing that Kohei's English proficiency was at the level it appeared to be. That's a small thing overall and I don't think I have any other complaints.

This book was absolutely delightful.

With historic tie-ins, intergenerational family issues, and dragons, where could you go wrong? This book is a lot of things, but the most pertinent piece for me was a conversation Isolde had with Kohei when she was speaking about her identity.

The conversation began with her asking if she would ever sound like a native Japanese speaker. Kohei rations no because he will never sound like a native English speaker since Japanese is his first language. It just makes logical sense. Ans Isolde follows up with how she would always be too American for Japan and too Japanese for America. And then she goes further to bring the idea in that she isn't even 100% Japanese, and her father's side is Jewish. But because of the way she appeared, in America, she would be nothing more.

This conversation hit me deep. So many people I know can relate to this - how they will never be complete enough for the people they should be able to identity with most. And the way the author encapsulated this conversation made it hard for me to focus on much else.

I didn't think this was the perfect book - I had a few issues with pacing and world building, but the message was beautiful. Especially because the issues of this book set in the 60s are still very, very relevant today. And the author used *dragons* to centralize the plot. A golden combination if you ask me.

Please go read this book.

A bittersweet yet touching book that mixes intergenerational trauma resulting from war with dragon questing, a genius idea I'm very much loving. In this story, set some twenty years after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we come to know a little boy of ten named Kohei, whose big objective in life is to heal his PTSD-suffering grandfather, and he thinks he can achieve that if the finds the big Ryu, or Japanese dragons, who are now gone from the country.

Ojiisan is an alcoholic and depressive with anger issues, due to trauma it's implied he carries over from WWII, and Mama is a rather defeated and passive woman that constantly repeats there's nothing to be done about it. But Kohei can remember his father's words to never quit, never lose hope. How can he if he was a toddler when his dad died? The big Ryu, apparently, he can also remember even though he shouldn't because they disappeared before he was born.

But Kohei is an enterprising and decided boy, very valiant and willing to do anything to help his beloved grandfather and mother. When he meets Isolde Carter, an American expat girl that has a dragon that speaks Yiddish (that was funny!), Kohei convinces her to go with him on a quest to some islands off the coast of theirs to search for the big Ryu. Will he find them and make Ojiisan smile at last? You'll have to read to find out!

I loved Kohei's character, his selflessness and optimism, and I liked Isolde, too. The dragons, especially Yuharu, are the real spotlight stealers, though. Sarcastic, wise, loyal, and so darling; they are like what your pupper would be if it could talk, with the same unconditional love and with a distinctive personality that complements their human companion's. The writing is simple, and the plotline itself isn't all that complex, but despite its simplicity, it touches all the right buttons and makes you think and smile.