My Father’s Dragon
I was pretty excited about this pick – it got great reviews on Amazon, and I thought it would be a great alternative to the Magic Tree House books for the 5-year old. And, it is the first book in a trilogy. The author is Ruth Stiles Gannett, and the series was first published in the 1950s.
The kids (ages 5 and 7) enjoyed it. My daughter initially thought it looked babyish, and said she would sit next to us and read her own book while I read to the 5-year old. But she got sucked in pretty quickly – it was a very cute story. The main character is a boy who rescues a baby dragon from a wild island where he was held captive by all the other animals. They used the dragon like a ferry to get back and forth across a river. During the rescue, the boy found all kinds of creative ways to avoid the animals on the island. For example, he used several sticks of chewing gum to distract a bunch of tigers. It was relatively short, so we read the whole book in just a few days.
But we’re reading the second book now, and it is not nearly as interesting – we’re almost done, and I think we’ll probably skip the third one. I bought two L. Frank Baum books – the Wizard of Oz and a sequel, so I’m ready to move on to those. I think for reading aloud, you really can’t beat the old stuff… classics, I mean. A 7-year old reading 30+ Magic Tree House books silently is fine, but reading them aloud is just drudgery.
So I’m going to let go of the idea that I have to read everything that they read, and go back to the strategy of reading books that are at their “comprehension” levels, which for all kids are generally higher than their “reading” levels.
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If you happen to have a child who absolutely loves them but can’t yet read, I recommend reading one or two and then taking a break with a different book. I also recommend zipping through them as quickly as possible so the drudgery only last a few days.
We’ve been reading Pinnochio per Theresa’s recommendation but unfortunately won’t be able to finish before we have to take it back to the libary.