1923-2024 · American children's author of My Father's Dragon and its sequels
About Ruth Stiles Gannett
Ruth Stiles Gannett (1923-2024), later Ruth Stiles Gannett Kahn, was an American children's author who grew up in New York City and Connecticut. She wrote My Father's Dragon (1948) and its sequels Elmer and the Dragon (1950) and The Dragons of Blueland (1951), all illustrated by her stepmother, Ruth Chrisman Gannett, wife of the book critic Lewis Gannett. She died in 2024 at the age of 100.
My Father's Dragon is told by a narrator about the boyhood adventure of their father, Elmer Elevator. One cold rainy day Elmer brings home a drippy old alley cat; his mother hates cats, whips him when she finds the saucer in the cellar, and throws the cat out.