I heard My Father’s Dragon before I could read it for myself, and indeed, with its short, episodic chapters, crisply drawn characters and naïve illustrations, it an ideal choice for a first chapter book. The plot is compelling: in return for his kindness in sheltering her, an old alley cat tells a boy by the name of Elmer Elevator how he might achieve his ambition to fly. In her travels, the cat tells Elmer, she once encountered a baby dragon, a beautiful creature with yellow and blue stripes, and golden wings. It had had the misfortune to fall from a cloud onto Wild Island, bruising a wing, and had henceforth become the miserable captive of the local inhabitants, condemned to fly them back and forth across the river that split the island almost in two. If the dragon could be rescued, then surely he would let Elmer fly on his back. But the island is populated only by animals—very wild animals. Elmer, unafraid, embarks upon a journey to rescue the baby dragon.
The exchanges of aid between cat and boy, boy and dragon, make sense to children concerned with fair treatment in relationships. So too does the necessity of the boy’s action; the adults of his acquaintance would never believe the cat’s story. Motivated by selfish desire and sincere compassion, the unflappable Elmer Elevator is an entirely believable hero. He makes his way through his adventure by the exercise of those attributes that define him as a child: his small size, his invisibility to those in power, his appreciation of a good joke, his sense of hope.
As a child, even more than the drama of the plot, I was compelled by the verisimilitude of this book. It was the map, I think, that convinced me of its truth. Long before I knew how to read it, I knew that the map on the endpapers showed a real place, a place that you could get to too, if you had the help of an old alley cat. The specificity of the writing also lent credence to the tale: the names of the islands, the numbers of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to be consumed, of bags of wheat to be delivered, and of tangerine peels to be concealed, and most importantly, the extraordinary contents of Elmer’s knapsack: “…chewing gum, two dozen pink lollipops, a package of rubber bands, black rubber boots, a compass, a tooth brush and a tube of tooth paste, six magnifying glasses, a very sharp jackknife, a comb and a hairbrush, seven hair ribbons of different colors, an empty grain bag with a label saying ‘Cranberry,’ some clean clothes, and enough food…” The plays on language entered into my private store of phrases to ponder. The image of a dormouse shaking its tiny fist at the sky, and shouting, “Bum cack! Bum cack! We dreed our nagon!,” was for years enough to reduce me to giggles.
The device of identifying the boy-hero as “my father,” drew the story most deeply into my consciousness, at the same time as it was puzzling. I can remember lying in my bed, the pillowcase warming and softening and wrinkling under my head, listening to my mother as she read, and wondering in a half-conscious way: whose father was Elmer Elevator? Her father, since she said the words, or my father, since I heard them? There were no other meaningful possibilities, since the narrator of the story is never named or otherwise identified. There were only the two of us, and the story, and the lamplight. But I knew that if such adventures had occurred to my father, surely they awaited me. Never before had I encountered a book that suggested that the border between stories and life was blade thin, and that with a map and a knapsack and a guide, you could go anywhere. I was particularly nice to cats afterwards.
There are two sequels, though neither is nearly as good as this. If you have children under six, find this book and read it with them. It will give them a taste of adventure and a sense of possibility. And if you can find an old edition, with the map in colors of sky blue and coral and sand on the endpapers, so much the better.