Today I felt well enough to read a book, although not well enough to leave the house beyond getting the mail out of the box. One of the things that annoys me about being sick is that I have all this time between naps to read the numerous unread books in my house, but I never feel like reading any of them when I’m ill. Of course, the book I chose to read this afternoon isn’t from my vast collection of unread tomes. It’s one I discovered in the juvenile literature section of my place of work on Sunday when I was hunting down an Ursula Le Guin book.
A Book Dragon by Donn Kushner is the story of Nonesuch, an English dragon who learns how to make himself small enough to fit between the pages of a book. One particular book, specifically, that he is guarding. Over time, the book ends up in a modern New England shop, and Nonesuch takes on the role of protecting all of the books in the shop as well as the humans who live there. This is a young adult book, but not so dumbed down to be dull for adults. The glimpses into human lives passing in front of the eyes of the dragon are an added treat for anyone familiar with Anglo-Saxon history.
