The White Dragon

by Richard Garnett

Set in the Fens, the White Dragon is really three dragons: one from a junk yard, one an ice yacht that Mark and his friends build, and one the missing White Worme, a stone carving in the hillside which has been hidden for 250 years.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Richard Duncan Carey Garnett was an editor, biographer, and children's author. He came from an illustrious literary family, being the son of David Garnett, grandson Constance Garnett, great-grandson of Richard Garnett, and great-great-grandson of the Rev. Richard Garnett.

Reviews

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winter in Norfolk, with a group of boys ice-skating on the fens, building ice-boats, finding the old white dragon from the village midwinter mummers play and deciding to put it on again, and (for one of them) chasing down an old legend of an even older white dragon followed by a coda of bad archaeology....I rounded up because I liked the content (except for the bad archaeology) and the descriptions, but there wasn't enough characterization and there were too many boys (I had trouble remembering who was who), not enough girls (for girls skating I need to go back to Hans Brinker....) and it never reached any sort of level of numinous enchantment. Still I enjoyed reading it lots

[Ellede · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m reading this book again for the I-don’t-know-how-manyth-time since it was given to me as a child, in the 70s. It’s one of the few children’s books I’ve kept through multiple house moves. This time, something I’m very much aware of is what a pleasure it is to read a story that isn’t “dark” in any way. There are no villains, no danger except the ordinary hazards of a Fenland winter, nothing dire happens or is threatened, nobody is full of angst or teenage hormones or whatever. It’s a group of friends enjoying doing (and in the protagonist’s case, learning) practical things - ice skating and making ice yachts and reviving a mystery play and starting an archaeological dig. My only negative (and it’s no surprise for a book of its time) is that there are only two girls in the story. But they aren’t treated like fools or accessories - just the opposite. This was one of the books that inspired my love of England. Graham Oakley’s illustrations add to the pleasure; when I was a kid I longed for a dragon like Old Snap. 9.9/10.

[Cazzaman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Children’s story from 1960s that was somehow left out for me to read. Boys doing all the interesting stuff, with the, obviously cleverer, girls resigned to their place. Strange ending after the, presumably accurate, detail of how to build an ice-yacht; archaeology isn’t done like that*. Or maybe it was, in Victorian times.

* Blurb at front states “… a special appeal for anyone who likes realistic stories which explain properly how things are made and done”