Help me identify a book from my childhood

Cafe Society
1

At work today the subject of books from our childhood and the following came up by two of us, we both remember the book, but are at a total loss as to the title.

Here’s what we know (or think we know):

We read it in elementary school and/or Junior High School, in any case, the early to mid 90s.

The cover featured a triangular shaped portal/hole. In the hole was a dragon’s eye, surrounded by mist, and a dragons claw poking out of the hole.

It was about a boy who found a knife with a black blade engraved with a triangle. The knife had some odd properties to it:

He peeled a potato with the knife and it became rock solid.

He peeled a slice of potato and it, too, became rock solid, and became a “glowing disk of death” (my own words) when thrown

Cutting a triangular shaped hole in above mentioned potato slice allowed him to see into another world.

The boy finds a refrigerator box, which he cuts a similar triangle shaped hole, when he steps through it he enters another world.

Dragons steal the piece of cardboard covering the hole, allowing them to invade this world. it’s revealed that due to him carrying this knife he’s some kind of dragon slayer.

Other than that, I remember that the book was fairly violent, including one scene featuring the boy ripping a dragons gut open with his knife as it flies overhead.

Google, wikipedia, numerous publisher sites have turned up blank. Are we suffering from a mass hallucination. :confused:

2

Could it be that instead of a boy it was a creature with hairy toes named a hobbit? And instead of a knife that makes a potato solid, it was a magic ring that turned you invisible? And instead of the dragon having its gut ripped open with a knife, the dragon was shot with an arrow through a chink in its armored belly? And instead of entering another world through a triangle-shaped hole, he escapes some underground dungeons by hanging onto the side of a barrel floating down a river?

If so, then I know what book it is.

3

I wish it was that easy :frowning:

There were some characters who MAY have fit the hobbity/dwarfish description, but they were only in the dragon’s world, I don’t even remember enough about them to give a description

4

You said you searched Wikipedia, and probably you saw this, but just in case you didn’t, here is an article listing dragons in literature:

Sir Rhosis

5

That’s a hell of a potato.

6

Aye, they were. That was the part that stuck out the most in my memory, quite a unique choice for a weapon

I did catch that **Sir Rhosis[\b], unfortunately, this doesn’t show up on that list.

Part of me wonders if maybe we’re merging two stories together, but I’m sure i distinctly remember this being a single book.

Another thing we realized (working late as usual) was that we both bought it either at a school book fair, making a likely publisher Scholastic (their site didn’t turn up much either, but it’s rough w/o a title)

7

If you haven’t yet, do try Loganberry Books, which has a “Stump the Bookseller” service that’s saved me from declaring myself insane more than once. You can also search the archives for solved mysteries, just to see if others have already asked about your book.

8

Or try the BookSleuth forums over at ABE. I’ve typically gotten quicker answers there. Plus it’s free.

Also, you might try browsing some of the categories over at scifan.com - one of the themese is dragons. Unfortunately, you can’t seach multiple themes.