Bible Fairy Tales— this is what this book When Dragons' Hearts Were Good (1999, Master Books) sadly made to proselytize little children is all about. Buddy Davis, sculptor and songwriter (But in no way a true certified paleo-artist), wrote and published this small idiot children's book based on one of his idiotic songs. The book is illustrated by the same man, Dan Lietha, who created a comic strip propaganda series After Eden and Creation Wise, a series that became a subject of parodies made to refute the claims found within the cartoons as shown here.
Nothing to review in detail really. There are lots of things in the book worth noting such as the purpose of deluding the minds of young children to the point where they cannot tell dinosaur from dragon. This excerpt from the book, found on page 18, is a direct example of this,
"One of the strangest pair of [sic] dragons, the stegosaurs, had triangular-shaped plates which grew out from their backs along the spine. When they wanted to be warm, they would stand in the rays of the greater light and let the sunbeam shine on their plates to warm their huge bodies. When they wanted to be cool, the dragons would stand in the shade of the trees and move their plates like huge fans. Adam and Eve were amazed at the detail God put into the design of each dragon."
Shown above is a direct example of Davis falsely calling the Stegosaurs "dragons" while they are in fact pure Jurassic dinosaurs that probably used their plates as a display device to flash out colors that warn predators to stay away or to attract a mate. These plated dinosaurs are everything dragons are not. What is shown in the excerpt is exactly what you'll find in Davis' fairy tale— all made up to target and brainwash young children into having no way of telling dinosaur from dragon. This is all a part of creationists' sheer deceptive efforts to spread lies about dragons and dinosaurs, claiming that dinosaurs were once called dragons before they were renamed 'dinosaurs' in the 1800s, falsely implying that dinosaurs and dragons are one and the same while they're not and they know it.
This book (Even Davis, in his book, admits this is entirely fictitious, yet contradict this by insisting this is based on his crackpot dogma they create by distorting Genesis 1-11 of the Bible), tells a simple fairy tale story about what was like in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit.
In it, the dinosaurs are falsely called 'dragons' (Greek for "serpent") even though they don't have hot liquid glands to help them breathe fire, strong lust for gold, power to create storms, lizard and/or serpentine bodies, woman's breasts, etc. Indeed, this book confuses the young reader to the point where he/she cannot tell dinosaur from dragon just as mentioned above. Among them are 2 wingless fictional dragons that are nothing more than larger, more elaborate versions of a small dragon modeled after a cat located within a large menagerie of cats that was drawn and sketched by the famous Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci. These caricatures are what creationist illustrators like Earl and Bonita Sellenberger, who illustrated Duane Gish's sloppy book Dinosaurs by Design, and Lietha, who illustrated such a stereotype for the book, AiG's so-called ministry cards, and Ken Ham's idiot book The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! [NOT!], claimed to be a meat-eating primitive spinosaurid that lived 125 million years ago in the early Cretaceous Period called Baryonyx, never mind it being an actual bipedal dinosaur with a head that resembles a crocodile, only one spike on its forehead, and a large claw on each first digit finger of its hands. This dinosaur is sadly exploited by the likes Davis who reasons, "If it looks like a dragon, it must be a dragon since its remains have been found in England, where dragon stories are told." This warped fairy tale logic is also paraded in The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved![NOT!] and Dinosaurs By Design.
This logic does not explain how come there are no traces of dinosaur remains found mixed with human remains (Let alone how come there is no traces of human, extinct and extant animal remains found mixed together in every rock strata from top to bottom.). Unlike what is seen in the book, Baryonyx in reality did not walked on all fours, had mammalian ears, a forked tongue, a fiery breath, an arrow tail tip, 4 curvy spikes on its forehead, a bearded chin, and a row of small spines on its back. YECs created this fictional monster and called it Baryonyx to give their gullible followers a false impression of Baryonyx being the dragon people, especially St. George, saw, fought, and killed in dragon legends told throughout the world.
Thus, the two fictional dragons shown in the book are portrayed by the creationists as one of their imaginary monster stereotypes they used to convinced the gullible of their views to be true and yet turned around and accused evolutionists of the exact same thing: using so-called "imaginary monsters" like Archaeopteryx to convince the people that evolution and the old earth concept is true.
Here's the cover of the book showing Lietha's fictional conception of Baryonyx which Lietha made in the image and likeness of a dragon:
And here what Baryonyx really looks like in real life based on actual studies of its morphology and bone structure (from Wikipedia).
A Short, Yet Detailed Summary
This book tells the story about 2 make-believe dragons roaming alongside Adam and Eve, extant modern animals, and a handful of familiar pseudo-dragons together in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned. They are seen together at the bottom on page 6 after the intro section on page 5. Then on pages 10-11, they are seen walking alongside of the couple breathing fire to light the night. The note to parents on page 11 gives out the mythical notion of dinosaurs being dragons that people saw in ancient dragon folklore, while ignoring the fact that this is the direct result of creationists fabricating dragon legends by selectively take them out of context and twist them around to fit their beliefs. It then invokes the oft-exploited Bombardier Beetle, with its hot defensive fluids used to spray on its enemies to drive them away, to help justify their fictional concept about fire breathing dinosaurs (in conjunction with the myth about Leviathan being a real monster despite finding no evidence for the existence of the fiery, supernatural, serpentine fish monster with 7 heads according to various religious accounts) creationists like Duane Gish entirely made up and promote as "truth" despite total lack of evidence for it.
Then pages 12-15 shows the stereotypes playing on a sunny morning.
Pages 16-23 mentions a few pseudo dragons such as Behemoths (Brachiosaurus) so falsely called despite having no penis and navals outside their bodies (See Steven Mitchell's The Book of Job for reference.) Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus (The all-animals-being-vegetarians folklore is paraded in this section.), and Pteranodon, a pterosaur who, along with all other pterosaurs, were sometimes called "flying dragons" in some dinosaur books because their monstrous looks and their bat like wings have often remind people of winged dragons like Smaug from The Lord of the Rings series. Of course like dinosaurs, pterosaurs are not dragons. They don't have snaky bodies, nor do they have fiery breaths, bat wings with 4 elongated "fingers" supporting their skin membranes, only 2 or no limbs in some cases, etc.
Pages 24-25 says that Adam and Eve will sin and ruin God's (sic) "Perfect Creation" soon. Original Sin dogma in the making.
Pages 26-31 tells about God visiting the couple later on at night. Ironically, although they were as the book says "the two most beautiful and intelligent people the world has ever known", they just can't help themselves asking God questions about how He made what and God would answer them all and showed them what He wants for them to see and simply told them to pass them on to their descendants in the future.
The story ended on pages 32-38 when Adam and Eve, after they watched a spider wasted its web, digestive juices, and venom on some gopher wood seeds that are hard-shelled and impossible for the spider to inject digestive juices in and eat it, they get a visit from the dragon stereotypes again and will eventually travel to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, where the snake-like lizard with arms and hands would tempt them to eat the forbidden fruit, which looked resembles a purple raspberry then the traditional apple and make them disobey God and bring on the rainbows and a land of tears as told by the creationists who denies the rain occurring before the flood and are willfully ignorant to the fact that mist is a form of rain and one does not necessarily need rain to form a rainbow (Look at a prism and/or a large waterfall and/or a fish tank with sunbeams shining through it for example.).
At the very end on pages 38, there was a promise being made in the book that one day God will come back and restore Eden just as it was before the couple sinned, which one individual, Rich Deem will clearly object to.
It's no wonder why creationism should also be called the Edenic Cult. Everything they teach is mainly centered entirely in and around the Garden of Eden and all that only matters to them, nothing else.
And finally on page 40, there is brief simplistic version of the Original Sin Dogma (i.e. Creation being ruined by Adam and Eve's sin.),which Rich Deem will also object, too and an invitation to receive a faulty form of salvation in Jesus Christ, which is nothing more than a roller coaster ride into Atheism once that young reader realized that he/she has been lied to and there's no such thing as dragons; dinosaurs never lived and walked with man; T.rex were meant to eat meat from the very beginning; dinosaurs are not dragons; etc. Thus, falling into the trap Morris, Ham, Davis and others set up as a scare tactic to keep their followers in line, in which they teach that if evolution and the concept of millions and billions of years is true, then the Bible and Christianity will all be a lie. Davis, just like all the other YECs, is simply setting the people up for the Fall (See this site for reference.). Plain and Simple.
Conclusion
Obviously, one of the latest strategies YECs and other cult groups would do to win followers is take advantage of children and "get'em while they're young", knowing that children are more gullible and weak than adults and will believe anything regardless whether it is true or false. Davis' book is one of such results made to "hit'em" while they are young before they reach the age of reason and discernment, planting seeds of deception into their minds in hopes of winning them to their side for life.
Even though there is no trace of any strawman evolution being made which in a way, is a good thing, that's still no excuse for propagating lies and delusions to small children.
Creationists are peddling junk, including this book, selling them especially to children. To them, selling their materials they made is the one and only way of getting rich and have many followers by their side so they can feel powerful and good about themselves. Davis is promoting delusions and falsehoods through song, music, and sculptures he makes of dinosaurs (in a wrong way) which he use to delude and distort children with lies and falsehood, and yet turned around and accused evolutionists of the exact same thing. Hypocritical isn't it?
It is the Parents' duty to make sure that they and their children must stay away from creationism and all of its influences. Especially this book of Davis' that are among the many out there they're promoting in many churches, where they bring their lay audience to the point where they will be so deluded that they will not tell fact from fantasy, truth from lie, fairy tales from true historical events, love from hate, fear from confidence, and dinosaur from dragon.
They will do them and their children no good in learning about what one would rather see excised, omit, and gone from all stories from the Bible once and for all because all of the following are highly irrelevant to the subject of the Bible and don't belong in there in the first place: the dinosaurs and all their prehistoric relatives and their ancestors such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Dimetrodon, Ornithosuchus, Pteranodon, Mosasaurus, Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, and especially Baryonyx!
