by Kenneth Grahame
This is one of those books I just can't believe I never read before! It's a charming little story about a boy who befriends a dragon near his cottage home. The dragon is quite the gentleman, loves poetry, and is also rather lazy- he likes his quiet time, let's say. The local villagers discover his cave is occupied and get quite upset. Even though he's never bothered them or so much as set foot in the village, they ask the famous knight St. George to come get rid of the dragon. When the knight arrives, everyone is eager to see a battle- except that the dragon doesn't want to fight at all. The boy is just as excited as the others about a fight, but of course he wants to help his friend. How can he work out the situation? I thought the solution quite clever, and funny too. The original illustrations by Ernest Shepard (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) are just lovely.
I really discovered this one because of another, newer edition with colored illustrations that I found on a library shelf. I wanted to read the original before the adapted version. It's really not a long story so I'm not sure why it had to be adapted, but I'll find out soon enough if a lot of text got cut; reading that one next.
rating: 4/5
........ 48 pages, 1966
I remember when I read this as a kid! It's such a dear book. I can't imagine why it would need to be cut down. It's already perfect (I vaguely recall).
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