A Dream of Dragons

The Viking Age began over a thousand years ago when the ancient Norse perfected their swift-sailing, dragon-headed longships. Young men, and later whole families, left Norway’s rugged fiords in search of open land, trade, treasure, or fame. Many others took to the unknown sea simply because something vague and irresistible beckoned to them. They settled islands all across the North Atlantic and landed in North America over four hundred years before Columbus. Their exploits are recounted in the ancient Norse sagas.

A Dream of Dragons is a modern Norse saga, a true story retold in the ageless rhythms of blank verse alongside beautiful and especially commissioned wood cuts by illustrator Mary Azarian. Willem Lange’s sweeping poetic prose weave the intersecting stories of a young man’s summer adventure and the true-grit tale of a stoic Norwegian family living in the 1890s. A Dream of Dragons is an engrossing read with many twists along the way.

Willem Lange of Montpelier, VT

Willem Lange is a short-story writer, commentator and host on Vermont Public Radio and New Hampshire Public Television. He also has a weekly column in The Valley News, the major newspaper in the NH/VT Upper Valley area. In addition to the Yuletide readings of his Christmas story, Favor Johnson, a staple on Public Radio for fifteen years, his annual readings of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -- on stage, on Vermont Public Radio, and on Armed Forces Radio overseas -- have been popular since 197

Mary Azarian Mary Azarian has illustrated over 40 books, including Snowflake Bentley which won the Caldecott Award. Mary Azarian moved to a small hill farm in northern Vermont in 1963. vegetable and flower garden. These years on the farm became the basis for the subjects she has chosen to depict in her woodcut prints. In 1969, she started Farmhouse Press and began producing woodcut prints, first printing by hand and eventually printing on a 19th century Vanderhook proof press.