Tuesday, March 02, 2010

I Read It ::: My Father's Dragon

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A few weeks ago Lauren mentioned a chapter book series she was reading with her Best Girl called My Father's Dragon. The fact that they were the first chapter books that she had read with her son, and now her daughter, intrigued me. I am always on the look-out for smallish chapter books for N1 and so I immediately reserved book one at the local library.

This book was WONDERFUL! N1 and I sat down to read it yesterday and couldn't put it down. At the end of every chapter, she said, "Just one more!" and since the chapters were 3-4 pages, I obliged. The story is about an adventure that the storyteller's father had - the main character never has a name, but is referred to as "my father" the whole time. He sets off on an adventure to Wild Island to rescue a baby dragon. With only his knapsack full of supplies, he manages to get by many and varied wild animals in his quest. First published in 1946, this book has stood the test of time and gets two thumbs up from our house. : )

If you have any little boys in your home (or even girls that love a good adventure story!) you need to check these books out! This is one that we are going to add to our home library, and I'm making a note to buy our boy cousin a set of these for his birthday this year. Thanks for mentioning these, Lauren!

This post is linked up to Five Minutes for Books "I Read It" monthly carnival, highlighting the books we have picked up on others' recommendations.

7 comments:

  1. I am so glad you enjoyed it. We got sidetracked and are still in the second story out of the three. My Best Girl is home sick today, so maybe we will make progress!

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  2. Dawn mentioned these recently as well, and it was totally on my list for this month, but it was checked out at the library. Hopefully we'll get to it next week, and I can add your recommendation to the list!!

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  3. Anonymous9:44 AM

    My girls have loved all the My Father's Dragon titles. Here are some links from my blog in case you're interested. ;-)

    http://hopeistheword.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/book-review-my-fathers-dragon/

    http://hopeistheword.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/elmer-and-the-dragon/

    http://hopeistheword.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/fridays-vintage-findthe-dragons-of-blueland-by-ruth-stiles-gannett/

    These are little treasures, especially for the short-on-attention-span crowd. I'm so glad you and your girls enjoyd it! :-)

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  4. I've never hear of these. I'll add them to my ever growing library list.

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  5. I confess I started reading this one recently aloud to me 3 1/2 year old and was rewording it so much (without his knowledge, of course) to make him more polite to his mother. =D I'm curious to hear people's take on the boy's attitude. Any thoughts there?

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  6. @Carrie: You know … I noticed that, but I think that’s the difference between me reading that to my Betsy (2 ½) and Noelle (almost 7). The back-talk section was fairly brief and Noelle understands that if that happens in our house, there are consequences. : ) Does that make sense? Betsy is so much more impressionable, which is why if she sees/hears her big sisters do anything then she immediately tries to copy them. That’s where I find the difference. :)

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  7. I read this back when my oldest was about 4, and he loved it, and the two sequels, so I recently took my 3 year old daughter on the adventure, too. I don't think I reworded anything, but I explained some unfamiliar (old time!) language, and we talked a bit about Elmer Elevator's attitude to his parents, too.

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Thanks for commenting!

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