My Father’s Dragon (A book review)

Just finished the children’s book ‘My Father’s Dragon’ written by Ruth Stiles Gannett and illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett in the year 1948.  This is a story of a little boy telling a story about his dad as a child and one of his adventures.  This adventure was when the little boys’ father went on a journey to rescue a dragon.  His father faced all kinds of dangers from the wild animals that he confronted with ingenious tricks.  For example here is one way that he escaped one issue by giving a group of tigers chewing gum.  The little boys’ father has a few more confrontations to get through to rescue his dragon.  Does the little boy succeed in his mission.  This is a good read even for adults.  This is the beginning of a series about the adventures of the kid’s father.

As a teacher or even as an activities assistant this is a good book to use.  To begin the teacher can form a few health lessons dealing with nutrition and even dental health.  Another lesson that a teacher could lead is to have the students name all the animals that the child saw on the island along with maybe even making puppets and making the various sounds that these animals make.  As a literacy exercise maybe the children could write or draw their own animal stories to share.  This would also be a good book for an older student say in the fourth grade to read to Kindergarten or even First grade students or to put on a puppet show for the students.  This could also be a book where students can read and practice their various reading skills along with memory skills when asked various questions as in “What was given to the Rhino to help the father escape?”  As a children’s book this could also be used when working with the elderly population when having troubles remembering things for if the elderly person can learn how to remember the order of the animals as they occur in the book maybe the elderly patient can remember the order of their medications or think of way to get out of jam that will not hurt anybody.

This is a storybook for all ages.