Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Cozy Corner

After finishing The Apple and the Arrow (and by "finishing" I mean "laboring through") I was excited to see a lighter, more kindergarten-friendly book on the list, My Father's Dragon.

This book is told from the perspective of a young boy, retelling his father's adventure on Wild Island, as he works to free the captive dragon that is a slave to all the island's animal inhabitants. The dragon is chained and forced to fly across a river to transport the lazy animals from one side of the island to another.

Now don't be fooled - this is not a "tug on your heart" kind of book. It is hilarious! The boy encounters tigers who are distracted by chewing gum, a rhinoceros too busy worrying about his dirty horn to guard the island, a vain lion, and a whole host of animals who are ready to do him harm, but are easily averted by simple means. Each chapter leads you through another adventure, told simply and with great humor. Both the kids loved it (even the 3 year old!).

The book is 87 pages long, with pencil sketches on about every other page, and the author is Ruth Stiles Gannett. Apparently this is a series, but since we have only read this one book, it is all I can comment on . . .

But my verdict is: buy it and read it and giggle with your kids!

5 comments:

Rachel said...

We loved all the books in this series, though I think My Father's Dragon is my favorite.

Linda C said...

Thanks for doing these book reviews, Donette! As a Grammy who is kind of out of the children's books loop, I appreciate hearing about good books for the grands!

This sounds wonderful!

Hugs,
Linda

Missy said...

Thanks! I'll write this one down. We recently checked out a couple books from the library that have turned into favorites. So much so that we're probably going to buy them for ourselves at some point.

Double Trouble in Walla Walla by Andrew Clements and Bad Kitty by...well, by somebody else. There!

Crazy Mom said...

My kids loved this book, too, and I found more of the series at Half Price! I don't know if I have the whole series or not (haven't looked into that), but you're welcome to borrow them anytime - just let me know!

Janna said...

Hi Donnette! I found you through Sarah Caucutt's blog!

Anyway, I graduated from MBBC in 2001 and have been blogging for almost a year.

This post would be perfect for a blog carnival I host called Feed Me Books Friday. Moms post about books they are reading and why they like them and then copy the link and enter it into the Mcklinky.

Not all bloggers get into this kind of thing but I just wanted to invite you. Every week the ladies provide great suggestions and I copy and paste the titles so I can find them at the library. Karen Harrison has joined it several time.

Your kids are so precious and your quilt is lovely. So nice seeing you again!