Exhibition of “My Father’s Dragon” is being held at PLAY! MUSEUM in Tachikawa, Tokyo, until October 1 (Sun.).
“My Father’s Dragon” is an adventure story featuring a 9-year-old boy named Elmer who goes to rescue a dragon cub trapped on Animal Island. Between 1948 and 1951, three books, “My Father’s Dragon” “Elmer and the Dragon,” and “The Dragons of Blueland” were published in the United States and became bestsellers in Japan, selling over 7 million copies in total.
At the exhibition, which will be held in Japan for the first time, approximately 130 original drawings made more than 70 years ago from the Karlan Collection at the University of Minnesota Library in the U.S., dummy books, illustrations, and production materials such as a Ryu doll made to illustrate the books will be exhibited for the first time. There will also be four exhibits in the exhibition hall that allow visitors to enter the world of the picture book and feel like Elmer, as well as materials about Ruth Stiles Gannett, the author of the “Elmer” series.
