The Dragon Takes a Wife

Las Vegas Book Festiva;

 

The Vegas Valley Book Festival was fun! A lot of people came out. We represented the HWA, sold a few books, and I drank a LOT of Diet Pepsi. But my favorite part?

Once upon a time, when Niko was a little boy, we were on the dialysis floor. He wasn’t having dialysis himself, but received a pamidronate treatment to help his calcium levels go down. While we were there, I found the most charming, hilarious book on the waiting room table. It was Walter Dean Meyers’ The Dragon Takes a Wife.

The Dragon Takes a Wife

It is one of the best children’s book I’ve ever read. Clever. Original. The fairy, Mabel Mae, has a beautiful afro and uses 1970’s jive talk. I loved it so much.

I wanted to steal it from the Seattle Children’s Hospital, but, alas. I thought that would be in poor form.  It’s out of print, but I tracked it down and bought an old copy from a library.

Walter Dean Meyers was reading at the festival, and I sneaked in to listen. Fantastic. I had brought my ragged, shredded, tattered copy of The Dragon Takes a Wife, and my friend X asked Meyers to sign it for me. I was all giggly.

Walter Dean Meyer

That was my favorite part of the entire festival.

Do you have a children’s book that means something special to you? Can you tell me about it?

5 Comments on “The Dragon Takes a Wife”

  1. I love Tiki Tiki Tembo, the Dick and Jane books amongst others. I have lots of fond memories of reading as a child.

  2. I have at least three but I can’t remember the exact name of the third and I read it every Christmas. This is Our Town, it is a 3rd grade reader that was used in Catholic schools back in the old days, Shirley Temple’s Book of FairyTales…I read that book until it was falling apart and yet I still have it here somewhere and then a Christmas book with several Christmas short stories and poems in it from like 1965. I totally love that book. I have read these books more times than I can count.

    I am glad you were able to get an autograph of your book Mercedes. That is great!

    Ardee-ann

  3. Isn’t it funny how these stories stay with us? There’s this story I read as a child, about a boy who loses his eyes. I was telling that to somebody the other day. I read that a zillion years ago.

    Thanks for your comments, you two! 😀

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