My Father's Dragon

75th Anniversary Edition. Hardcovers and paperbacks now available! We have two versions of this book, an inexpensive b&w paperback and a color hardcover.

When a baby dragon falls from a low-flying cloud onto Wild Island, a group of lazy animals capture him and put him to work—forcing him to act as a ferry flying across a dangerous river.

The baby dragon’s plight reaches kind-hearted Elmer Elevator and he sets out on a rescue mission carrying a knapsack full of unusual supplies. Come along on Elmer’s adventure to see how he cleverly uses a hairbrush, chewing gum, lollipops, plenty of rubber bands, and other quirky items to save the baby dragon.

This Newbery Honor Book, recreated in a near facsimile of the first edition, has charming illustrations by the author’s stepmother, Ruth Chrisman Gannett. For 75 years this tale has been delighting generations of young readers and TIME magazine included My Father's Dragon on their list of the 100 Best Children’s Books of all time.

Back in 2000, when I went to visit our author Edward Ormondroyd (who wrote David and the Phoenix) in Trumansburg, NY, he took me to visit a friend of his, Ruth Gannett Kahn. At the time I'd never heard of My Father's Dragon. How I would have loved it when I was younger! Edward told me Ruth wrote the story in two days as a grad student. When I met her she graciously showed me all three books in the trilogy, then lamented that due to cost the map endpages were no longer in color. I agreed that the color really added to the book. So I'm pleased to say that we have a hardcover edition that I (and the author) feel adds a lot to the story, with color maps in the front and back of the book. If you read the sample above, it shows the color map!

Then since I was paying a higher price to print this book in color, I thought why not add color to all of the illustrations? The good news is that I've highlighted Elmer and the main characters on each page in color.

This book makes a nice transition between picture books and chapter books, it's also a wonderful read-aloud for ages 3 and up. My son still fondly remembers us reading this imaginative tale together when he was 5, just after I returned from Trumansburg. And now I've dedicated our new color edition to my son and his family, for whom it was lovingly created.