Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel

Verdict: Actually Good | Parent Survival: 8/10

Yes, I’m reviewing a sequel without having reviewed the original. I know, it’s unorthodox. But here’s the thing: Dragons Love Tacos 2 manages to take a story which was already completely absurd (dragons destroy your house because of eating spicy salsa), and somehow turn the dial for ridiculousness even higher (ZAM!)

Let me be upfront: these books have no nutritional value. There’s no lesson. No moral. No character growth. They’re about dragons who love tacos, and what happens when you give them spicy salsa.

(They set your house on fire. That’s what happens.)

How Do You Follow Up “Dragons Love Tacos”?

The first book established an extremely stupid premise and committed to it fully. Dragons love tacos. Spicy salsa makes them breathe fire. Houses burn down. The end.

So how do you make a sequel? You add time travel, obviously.

The world has run out of tacos. Dragons are devastated. The solution? Build a time machine, go back to the past, and get tacos from history. But—and this is where it gets properly unhinged—our heroes accidentally prevent the invention of tacos altogether, creating a taco-less dystopia that they must then fix.

It’s bonkers and I respect that enormously.

The Fire Pages

I need to tell you about reading this at a daycare book week event. Parents come in, read to the group, the whole deal. I chose this book because I thought it would get some laughs.

What I did not anticipate was the visceral reaction to the pages where the dragons breathe fire and burn everything down. The kids went absolutely feral. Several boys asked—begged, really—if they could have another look at the fire pages after I’d finished. There was something primal about their joy at watching illustrated destruction.

This book understands something fundamental about children: they love chaos. Controlled, fictional, brightly-illustrated chaos.

Why This Works

The original Dragons Love Tacos was already operating at maximum absurdity. The sequel could have just repeated the formula. Instead, Adam Rubin asked himself “what if I added temporal paradoxes to a picture book?” and somehow made it work.

The time-travel plot is genuinely funny. There are jokes about causality. There are dinosaurs (because of course there are—it’s time travel). The dragons remain deeply committed to their taco obsession across all of space and time. It’s stupid in the best possible way.

Best For

Kids who love silly and chaos. Parents who appreciate commitment to absurdity. Anyone who has ever thought “you know what this children’s book needs? Time travel and the potential unravelling of the space-time continuum.”

The Original: If you haven’t read Dragons Love Tacos, maybe start there? Or don’t. Honestly, this one stands alone in its glorious absurdity.

Buy it here (Affiliate link. Funding temporal taco research.)