Acceptance Speeches for the 1997 Awards

Annual SCBWI Summer Conference
Los Angeles, CA
August 2, 1998

Marguerite W. Davol
The Paper Dragon
accepting the Golden Kite in the Picture Book Text category

I feel very humble and grateful to be here today. Thank you! Ever since I began my second career as a children’s book author, I’ve been a conference junkie -- and it seems unbelievable that here I am at SCBWI National -- a dream realized. Now at all the conferences I’ve sat through, even given a workshop or spoken at, authors are asked one question over and over. "Where do you get your ideas?" We don’t always know. Probably you’ll all agree that sometimes a story arrives in the middle of the night, a dream or a nightmare. Sometimes it pops into one’s head on the way to the supermarket, waiting for the dentist, on a long airplane ride. Where did THAT come from, we wonder. And it’s only in retrospect that we are able to puzzle out the sources of inspiration, follow the thread in the labyrinth of creation to its center, its source.

However, for THE PAPER DRAGON, I know exactly why and how and when the story was written. Ten years ago, I needed a Valentine’s Day story for four and five year olds, an age group I’d been teaching for many years. I was tired of the few books available; either they were too syrupy, too silly, or too simple for my group that year. So I decided to create my own story for the children, as I often did. A few weeks earlier, at a monthly storytelling swap, I’d heard a simplified version of a traditional Chinese tale, "Young Head of the Family." A couple of elements in the tale tickled me - two tasks which the heroine had to solve were how to carry fire in paper and how to carry wind in paper. Paper - there it was! Valentine’s Day in the preschool involves paper, reams of it -- cutting, pasting, drawing, laboriously writing "I Love You." On paper. I was off and running! And of course a Valentine story is also going to be about love!

Now the Chinese tale I heard had nothing to do with a dragon, nor about love. And certainly it was not about an artist. But preschoolers themselves are fascinating artists, wonderfully unihibited, always exploring, stretching the limits of paint and paste. An artist as hero was a logical choice for me, immersed as I was in children’s art. In fact, every morning in the New Hampshire house where I live half the year, I awaken to a large group painting done by Kindergarten children, a wonderful painting with swirls of color, odd shapes, even a surreal dragon -- created for me after I’d told THE PAPER DRAGON to them.

But why a dragon? Mostly because the original source was a Chinese tale, I suppose. And dragons are huge, larger than life, a BIG problem to face. Young children like being scared, as long as we reassure them in the end, as long as that large dragon is finally vanquished. Now in China, the dragon is a symbol of power, of authority, of the Emperor. I liked that connotation! Certainly I wasn’t picturing to myself many of the dragons found in medieval Christian art. Too often, when St. George and St. Michael are portrayed slaying dragons, the symbols of evil, the dragons are peasly little reptiles, hardly worth confronting. There’s a statue in Autun, France with one of my favorite examples. Sweet-faced St. Marguerite has a sweet-faced dragon with perky wings coiled around her skirts. Charming, but I didn’t want that kind of dragon! Actually, I thought of my dragon as a manifestation not of evil, but of the huge, overwhelming forces of nature -- of volcanos and earthquakes, fire and drought. Read THE PAPER DRAGON and hopefully you’ll sense what my dragon symbolizes. Can love conquer nature? Well...

And of course setting my tale in China was deliberate, not just because of dragons, but also because of the paper connection - since paper was first created there.

So I wrote my tale and, using simple paper props, told THE PAPER DRAGON to groups of preschoolers and Kindergarteners on Valentine’s Day. Coincidently, our monthly storytelling swap was that very night - and of course I told THE PAPER DRAGON. Jane Yolen (whose books I’m sure most of you know) was there -- she lives near me. When I had finished, she said, "That story will sell!" And just as I’ve done with several of my stories, I reworked the oral tale, making it into a picture book text, always a subtle process! Then I sent the manuscript to my agent, Ginger Knowlton, at Curtis Brown. Ginger also believed THE PAPER DRAGON would sell. She continued to send it out despite the increasingly high stack of rejections, rejections which ranged from "You’re not Chinese," to the familiar, "Loved the story, but..." to "too moral" a tale! And from time to time, Jane Yolen would ask, "How about THE PAPER DRAGON?" "Still out there," I’d reply.

Now I really have to thank all those sixteen or so editors -- because their rejections meant that the tale finally landed on the desk of exactly THE right editor, Ana Cerro, then of Atheneum. She loved THE PAPER DRAGON and she chose exactly the right illustrator for the book -- Robert Sabuda, the paper engineer par excellence... the paper afficianado. I thank you, Robert, for making my tale a work of paper art!

Of course I want to thank my husband, Bob Greenberg and my children -- the best possible critics, supporters, promoters. Who needs publicity agents? All over the country, my children, who travel a lot in their careers, pop into bookstores, ask about my books and tell the bookstores to carry them!

You know, my late husband, Stephen, and my children used to call me "Worst Possible Case Davol" because my coping mechanism always was to imagine the worst thing that could ever happen and how to deal with it, so that whatever did happen, I was prepared. Well, I’ve never really imagined The Best Possible Case of winning the Golden Kite, and I’m still not quite sure how to cope with such an honor. But it’s a great feeling. Thank you, SCBWI, for my Golden Kite!

Robert Sabuda
The Paper Dragon
accepting the Golden Kite in the Picture Book Illustration category

On the upper portion of my left forearm there is a thin, white scar about one half inch long.

Odd as it may sound, I know that many of us tend to name a scar or at least give it a title based on the occasion to which it came into being.

"It's my bicycling scar from when I was young," someone will say or "it's my World War II scar from when I was in the army."

This thin white scar on the upper portion of my left forearm I call my "Paper Dragon" scar.

In order to create the art for Marguerite Davol's breath taking tale of self-sacrifice, bravery and love I had to paint many sheets of delicate tissue paper. To prevent the wet tissue paper from sticking to my worktable I needed to continuously cover it with plastic Saran Wrap. And at the edge of the Saran Wrap box is a very narrow, but very sharp, serrated metal strip.

For the very first sheet of tissue paper I was to paint, I grabbed the Saran Wrap with my left hand and pulled out a long piece to place on my table. I couldn't hold the very end of the Saran Wrap due to its great length, so I moved my hand closer in toward the box. Which in case I hadn't mentioned, has a very narrow, but very sharp, serrated metal strip.

Holding the Saran Wrap fiat with my left hand, I pulled the box across to separate it and zunk came right into my forearm.

As I raced to the bathroom with a red river twisting down my arm all I could think was "Oh, this book better be a good one because now I AM PERMANETLY MARKED !

In China the color red can symbolize good fortune, so if a little bloodletting was necessary to bring me here today than so, be it.

I'd like to thank Marguerite Davol, first, for painting such a magnificent story with words, and second for her willingness to wait a year (or two!) for me to be able to create the visual art. You authors seem to write so fast and we artists are really slow, so thank you again Marguerite. It's an honor to add my name to your work.

I'd also like to thank Jon Lanman, my editor at Simon & Schuster, whose guidance over the years has proved immeasurable and whose patience knows no bounds.

And finally, thank you to the Golden Kite committee and all the members of the Society. It truly means so much more when it comes from your peers.

Thank you.