39 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth Stiles GannettMy Father's Dragon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1948A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Authorial Context: Ruth Stiles Gannett
Gannett wrote My Father’s Dragon when she was 25 years old. The story and its two sequels have been continuously in print since their publication, suggesting their enduring, cross-generational popularity.
Born in 1923 to journalist parents Mary Ross Gannett and Lewis Stiles Gannett, young Gannett attended City and Country, an innovative elementary school, which Gannett believes helped foster her creativity and imagination. The school emphasized hands-on learning and during the 10 years she attended, Gannett “played with large and small blocks, learned to sing, read and write, modeled clay, painted, built furniture, conducted science experiments, and wrote stories for her own amusement” (“About Ruth and Ruth.” My Father’s Dragon.org).
Gannett attended a Quaker boarding school, and then in 1940, shortly before the United States entered World War II, she began her studies at Vassar College. Gannett graduated from Vassar in 1944 with a chemistry degree. She went on to work at a Boston hospital and later at a radiation laboratory. Gannett had started writing a story about a baby dragon but discontinued it while working at a ski resort. When that job ended, Ruth lived with her parents while looking for new work. She started writing her “dragon story” again during that time. Her parents convinced Gannett to try and have her story published. An editor at Random House tested the book’s popularity with children at a Boston school. They enjoyed the story, and the rest is history (“About Ruth and Ruth”).
Gannett declares that her book “was written by the child within her and that is why children respond to it” (“About Ruth and Ruth”). At the time of this guide’s publication in 2023, Gannett is an active 99-year-old.
Authorial Context: Illustrator Ruth Chrisman Gannett
Ruth Chrisman Gannett, the author’s stepmother, is equally famous for her illustrations. Chrisman Gannett was born in 1896. She studied art at the University of California, Berkeley and went on to teach art to school children. After moving to New York City and studying art there, Chrisman Gannett, surrounded by so many “great artists,” lost confidence in her abilities and stopped drawing (“About Ruth and Ruth”).
Chrisman Gannett married Lewis Stiles Gannett in 1931 and became stepmother of then eight-year-old Ruth Stiles Gannett. She began to draw again, becoming especially well-known for her children’s book illustrations during the 1940s and 1950s. She received the Caldecott Honor Award for her illustrations of the Russian folktale My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (1945) by Becky Reyher, and illustrated the Newbery Honor Book, Miss Hickory (1946) by Carol Sherwin Bailey. Chrisman Gannett collaborated with her stepdaughter to illustrate all three of the tales in the My Father’s Dragon Series.
Historical Context: Antiquated Phrases
Gannett uses some language that modern readers may be unfamiliar with or may misinterpret. Both the mouse and a sailor refer to things being “queer.” The sailors think Elmer’s bag of wheat is “the queerest bag” they have ever seen, and Mouse (once he untangles his speech) thinks Elmer is a “queer little rock” (29).
Gannett uses “queer” to signify that something is strange, different, or suspicious. The word “queer” dates to the 15th century and, is, debatably, of either Scottish or Low German origins. Its meanings include “strange, peculiar, odd, eccentric.” (“Queer.” Online Etymology Dictionary). The cat makes “queer”—strange, peculiar, or weird—noises to distract the night watchman while Elmer stows away aboard the ship.
In the past, the word “queer” was used as a derogatory term for those who were not cisgender or heterosexual. Today, in most instances, “queer” is a positive word, reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community.
One sailor on the ship to the Island of Tangerina exclaims “Great Scott!” when he sees an odd bag of wheat, replacing “God” with “Scott.” This interjection is considered a minced oath, which is made by misspelling or replacing an objectionable word. Lion expresses another minced oath when he roars “Ding blast it!” (45), substituting “ding” for the offensive word “d*mn.”
Some sources contest that the expression “Great Scott” comes from the German phrase “Gruess Gott” which means “Great God” (Rogers, Cathy. “What Does ‘Great Scott’ Mean?” LanguageHumanities.org). The “Scott” referred to is General Winfield Scott, an army commander during the Mexican American War (1846-1848) and a Union General during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Scott cut a large figure: He was 6’5” tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds. The soldiers under his command called him “Great Scott” (“Great Scott!” Grammarist). Some suggest that since Scott was considered fussy and pompous, the expression may really be sarcastic (“What Does ‘Great Scott’ Mean?”).
In My Father’s Dragon, the second boar uses the exclamation “Horsefeathers!” when the first boar tells him the other animals are too busy with their gifts to talk with him. “Horsefeathers!” is an interjection that expresses rejection: The boar is saying “Nonsense!” or “Ridiculous!” or, to use another old oldfangled word, “Bunk!”
Some believe that the term horsefeathers was created in 1927 by the American cartoonist, William de Beck, who was popular in the 1920s and 1930s for the comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (“Horsefeathers.” Online Etymology Dictionary). Others suggest that horsefeathers is a euphemism for “horses**t,” while still others believe it may have had its origin in the roofing trade in New England: The feathering strips placed on wood shingle roofs were called “horsefeathers.” The term may also simply refer to something impossible like flying pigs—or feathered horses—though several breeds of draft horses do have long hair on their lower legs, called feathering.
Even in 1948, when My Father’s Dragon was published, some of the expressions Gannett uses in the story were considered dated. Gannett may have intended for the old-fashioned, euphemistic exclamations to add to the story’s humor and make the animals more human and relatable for readers.
