“My Father’s Dragon”, by Ruth Stiles Gannet

Gannett, Ruth Stiles, and Ruth Chrisman Gannett. My Father’s Dragon. New York: Random House, 1948. Print.

This book stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw it on the library shelf.  Although it’s not the same cover I remember, this book was in the library either at my first school or in town, and I got it out multiple times when I was a child.  I was a little apprehensive about re-reading it, but I found it held up well over the decades.  It’s a much lower reading level than I remembered. Scholastic pegs it at a grade level of 4.8, which seems high.  It’s a fairly gentle, yet exciting, tale about a boy who goes on a voyage and rescues a dragon.  The part that stuck in my young mind was the precise and mysterious list of things he packs in his knapsack; each and every one of them are needed and accounted for by the end of the trip.

Highly recommended, especially for reading aloud at bedtime; the ten short chapters are perfect for reading one, then allowing a second, and being done in a week.