(BWF) The Book of Dragons / E Nesbit - 3***

[Book Concierge]

The Book of Dragons – E Nesbit
3***

This collection of short fairy tales was first published in 1899. E Nesbit came to writing children’s books later in her career, but she excelled at it. Many of her books are still in print today, more than a century after they were first published.

The first story is The Book of Beasts, about a young boy who finds a book and learns that when he opens the page, he releases the depicted being into the real world. Of course, the first one he releases is the dragon and that is NOT good. He has to open several other pages before he arrives at a solution.

Nesbit populates her stories with all manner of dragons … big, small, hungry, kind, fierce, curious, sleeping. One involves an ice dragon and two intrepid children who seek to find the source of the Aurora Borealis. Another involves a princess trapped on an enchanted island guarded by nine whirlpools and a fierce dragon, whose spell can only be broken by an extremely clever and worthy man. All of them are delightful and all feature marvelous illustrations by H. R. Millar. (5-stars for the illustrations.)



LINK to my review