The Dragon of an Ordinary Family

The Dragon of an Ordinary Family is a children's book published in 1969 about a father who won't buy his children a pet. His wife calls him a fuddy-duddy which prompts him to return to the pet store where he notices a baby Dragon on sale for fifty cents, which he buys and brings home and is such a great hit his wife tells him he's no fuddy-duddy and all of the neighbors marvel at his savvy purchase. But eventually the Dragon grows too big for the house and the yard and the neighbors complain and the Mayor tells the family they must get rid of the Dragon, sell him to a zoo or a circus or Hollywood. The Dragon speaks for the first time and tells them it's true, he has grown too big, he should leave and go to the Isle of Magic, the place where Dragons are supposed to be, but he can take them there for the Christmas holiday. So the family goes with him and spends a couple of weeks there seeing the universe in grains of sand or rolled into balls of dough. The Dragon presents the father with a hookah and the father takes it to be the heavy wonderful octopus of time. Farewells are said and tears are shed because they know there can be no next time. The family returns home and the father goes out to protest the war, where he meets a cheetah and makes a score. The Dragon lingers in the father's mind until it becomes a monkey with its legs around his waist, paws on his shoulders, and tongue in his ear. His ordinary family can't save him. He lives the rest of his life out on the streets telling himself stories about the Dragon he found once upon a time in his fuddy-duddy past.