A Summer Day in the Book Dragon Realm

The book dragons are very busy this time of year...

...reading books!

The days are warm and breezy. Dragonlings are out of school and the sound of them playing dragon games rings from every corner of the realm. Sunlight trickles through trees, dappling the ground with sun spots where dragons lay about and read their favorite books. Sometimes the wind playfully catches a page and turns it before the dragons are ready--they try not to look ahead as they hurry back to their page! Some dragons lounge in the trees instead of beneath them, their scales keeping the tree bark from scratching them. All through the Realm--in trees and under them, on the river's edge with their tail in the water, tucked beneath the root of a giant oak, curled up in the long grass, sprawled across a giant boulder--dragons soak in the summer weather and read and read and read.

Someone calls out that food is ready, and book dragons mozy inside for a light lunch: fluffy rolls with melted butter, fresh fruit with a dollop of cream, some cheese slices. Someone has made a lovely lemonade with mint leaves, sharp and refreshing for a warm summer day.

One dragon bemoans a spot of butter that fell on his book's pages. Everyone sympathizes; who hasn't spilled food on their books once? (or twice...or more...) One dragon tells the story of when he spilled an entire beef stew on a book. He saved the book, technically, with a bit of magic, but the pages still smelt of beef and there was a wave of the pages that never quite came out. The other book dragons all share their silly food stories and by the end of lunch, everyone is laughing and the dragon with the butter-spotted page feels a lot less sorry for himself.

They all help clean up the dishes, wipe jam smears from the table, sweep crumbs from the floor, then back to their favorite reading spots!

Book dragons don't read all summer though. Sometimes they get together and talk about books, or go trade books with their friends, or go berry picking in the shady forest...where they often sit among the berries and read some more, and come home with berry stains on their paws and the edges of their books.

One dragonling, trying to stay cool, leans a little too far into the brook while reading and falls right in, knocking in her book pile as well! For a few minutes, there is a scramble to grab the books from the water--even the other dragonlings dive in to help! There is a lot of splashing and yelping and "oh no"s! One book floated further downstream than expected and had to be coaxed out from under a rather stubborn frog. The unfortunate dragonling's friends spend the rest of the afternoon helping her lay out each and every book in the sun, pages up, letting the breeze and sunshine dry the pages, and in the end the books are (mostly) alright.

As the sunny summer day cools and fades into a velvety evening, dragons come home and share their treasures: new stories, new flowers pressed into the pages of their books, new grass stains on their scales, an errant smear of berry across their forehead they didn't know about until their family points it out with a chuckle.

It is another beautiful summer in the Book Dragon Realm.