Many thousands of years ago, long before the memory of our great-great-grand-fathers, Chin Li, a small boy of ancient China, made a remarkable journey. He flew to Mexico in the ear of a dragon. Naturally it was a King Dragon, as even a very small boy would hardly fit in the ear of an ordinary dragon.

After the summer had passed in the strange country, the dragon settled down to hibernate and Chin Li set out to explore. As boys will, he grew up (while the dragon slept on) and eventually became one of the ancestors of today's Mexicans.  Pepe, Maria, and Alfredo were his descendants, and even after so many generations, they still looked a little Chinese.  And still, too, the old tales that had been handed down from father to son for generations told of magic and of dragons.  All of his short life Pepe had longed to see a real live dragon, but small lizards were all he ever saw, until one day be went far up into the mountains. There he found the same old dragon, just waking from his sleep. He was shriveled from the years and lack of food, but after a good meal (Pepe saw to that) he was his former self, good-natured and ready for adventure, which was to come to them in good measure.

It was Christmastime in that small Mexican town and thanks to that old King Dragon and Pepe, it was a Christmas never to be forgotten.  This story, which may become a modern Christmas legend, tells why so many Mexicans have Oriental eyes and why the paper Chinese dragons appear in Latin-American fiestas. Ruth Sawyer's words have again woven their special magic to delight listeners as well as readers.

From the dust jacket