The Dragons of Blueland Read Online Free PDF Page A

the "Nevergreen City News."
    "Listen to this!" yelled Mr. Elevator, reading aloud at breakfast: " 'A fantastic and unexplainable escape took place in the great, high mountains of Blueland late Sunday night. Fifteen dragons, a wonder in themselves as they have long been believed extinct...' " and the newspaper story went on to tell about the brave men who had fought their way back through treacherous sandstorms to tell "the most momentous story of our time."
    " 'Unbelievers who doubt this story,'" continued Mr.
    Elevator, reading aloud from the paper, " 'will find it difficult to dismiss the following supporting evidence of the presence of dragons in this region.' " Then he proceeded to read about a ship stationed off the coast of Popsicornia which twice had sighted a strange flying beast, once with a boy atop it. And about a certain Mr. Wagonwheel who claimed also to have seen it twice, once on the ground near his farm, and once in the air with a boy aboard, over Seaweed City. And about Chester DeWitt, a small boy who also claimed he'd seen the dragon over the city the preceding Thursday evening. Lastly, there was a short bit about the conductor and the ticket agent, who wondered if the boy they had seen late Sunday night could have had anything to do with the case, and so on.
    Mr. Elevator dropped the paper and stared at Elmer. "Did you have anything to do with all this? I just don't understand your strange trips away from home."
    "Me?" said Elmer, choking on a piece of toast. "Why, Father, you don't mean you really believe all that nonsense, do you?"
    THE END

 
    About the Author and the Illustrator
    RUTH STILES GANNETT wrote My Father's Dragon just a few years after her graduation from Vassar College in 1944. It was an immediate success, becoming a Newbery Honor Book, and was soon followed by two sequels, Elmer and the Dragon and The Dragons of Blueland. All three dragon stories have been continuously in print in the more than 40 years since their publication. The author's other books include Katie and the Sad Noise and The Wonderful House-Boat-Train. She is married to the artist and calligrapher Peter Kahn. They have seven daughters and seven grandchildren.
    RUTH CHRISMAN GANNETT was already a well- established illustrator when she began collaboration with her stepdaughter on My Fathers Dragon and its sequels. Her pictures for these books are perhaps her most enduring work. Her illustrations may also be seen in the first edition of John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat and in Miss Hickory by Carolyn S. Bailey Mrs. Gannett was married to the late Lewis Gannett, daily book critic for the New York Herald Tribune. She died in 1979.

 
    THE DRAGONS OF BLUELAND
    "...the last of the books about Elmer Elevator and the flying baby dragon.. .concerns Elmer's plan to outwit the hunters who have organized an expedition to capture t he dragon's family. The plan is ingenious and plausible, the fantasy well sustained, and the lithographs by Ruth Chrisman Gannett even more delightful, if possible, than those in My Fathers Dragon."
    —Library Journal (starred review)
     
    "Delectable, straight-faced nonsense."
    —Chicago Tribune
     
    Read all three tales of My Father's Dragon,
    available from Random House
    MY FATHER'S DRAGON
    ELMER AND THE DRAGON
    THE DRAGONS OF BLUELAND