Appearances
Recent comments by elementary students:
“Last Friday I had a bunch of fun. I loved all the books that you wrote. I thought that they were very, very funny.”
“I learned the ‘dummy’ is a first rough copy. I never knew you were supposed to do that. I liked it when you showed us the pre-copy.”
“It was cool how we made our own books. I want to be a writer when I grow up.”
Programs for Children
Length—30 minutes for younger audiences to 50-60 minutes for older children.
Size of Audiences—can address assemblies or smaller groups for workshop activities.
Make a Beast! Paper Bag Puppets
I will read from Dear Miss Perfect: A Beast's Guide to Proper Behavior, in which animals write in with their problems. For instance the porcupine would like to know where he can find a dancing partner. Students will discuss what problems various animals might have, and then they will make their own paper bag animal puppets. Children can have fun describing their "problem" with their animal puppet (or "beast"!) on their hand. Grades 1-4
Making a Picture Book
In my picture book, Dear Miss Perfect: A Beast’s Guide to Proper Behavior, animals write in with their problems: a porcupine would like to know where he can find a dancing partner; an elephant would like to know what to do with his trunk at the dinner table. With slides and actual pieces of art I bring to class, I show the beginnings of this book, how it evolved, and how students can create their own picture book. We end with each student creating a double-page spread for a book the class will put together. Grades 1-4
Writing and Research: How I Work
With slides, I discuss growing up in southern Ohio, the fossils in my backyard, and the remarkable Cincinnati Arch—a geological formation that has pushed up pre-dinosaur fossils, and how it informed my novel Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth. Students will learn how writers use what they “know” and research what they don’t. How they develop a character. This will lead to writing exercises in which students investigate their own interests and begin stories of their own. Grades 4-7
For a school visit, please contact Sandra Dutton by email: [email protected]
or cell phone: (207) 350-6136.
Programs for Adults
Formerly a professor of English at New York Institute of Technology, Dutton taught creative writing and literature courses, as well as a “writing for children” course for NYIT’s Continuing Education Department.
She was awarded three American Association of University Professors grants and the Award for Academic Excellence by the school’s honor society.
I Eat My Peas With Honey
A workshop for beginners on writing and/or illustrating the picture book and middle grade novel. Plot, character, getting ideas, and how to submit work are covered. Participants also do writing exercises. This is a “whet-the-appetite” workshop, pointing writers and/or illustrators in the direction they need to go to develop their own projects. (3-4 hours)
How to Make a Picture Book
Using poems in the public domain, or the participants’ own poems/stories, create a storyboard, then begin construction of a dummy. Types of picture books, rhythms, page turns, and types of illustration are discussed. (3 hours)
Novel Workshop
Best for those with a draft under way—a sharing of the participants’ own sample chapters, discussion of processes, and what to do when
you get stuck. (a weekend workshop)
To set up a workshop, please contact Sandra Dutton by email: [email protected]
or cell phone: (207) 350-6136.
Sandra Dutton's books have been named to "Pick of the Lists' by American Bookseller, featured in Publishers Weekly, and have appeared on many "best books" lists.
She has taught both art and writing at the elementary, high school, and university levels. Teachers like the way she can draw parallels between the writing and illustrating processes, showing the research and drafting that go into each one.
Dutton chaired the English Department at New York Institute of Technology, and her reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review.
Join us for Sandra Dutton discussing and signing A Wheelchair that Flies.
OPTIONAL RSVP below, but not required to attend the event.
Lily, a newly minted fairy godmother who loves fancy dresses and easy magic, is stunned when she fails to cure Daniel, a thirteen-year-old boy who is wheelchair-bound due to a muscular dystrophy. Assuming that Daniel's life is frustrating and boring -- stuck in his room watching old sports clips -- Lily is surprised to learn of his love for statistics and that he has billed himself as THE WORLD'S GREATEST EXPERT ON BASEBALL.
Moreover, his deepest wish is to see the first National League night game played between the Reds and the Phillies at Crosley Field in 1935. But how is this going to happen?
The world is ripe for a fantasy that celebrates the strengths of those with disabilities and rejects the notion that a fairy godmother needs to concoct a "cure" to help individuals find fulfillment and happiness. Daniel, in fact, shows Lily what really matters to him and challenges her to produce some of her own best magic.
In the process, he teaches her about baseball, friendship, and the magic of flying machines.
An illustrated story in verse, with 36 original watercolor paintings.
Sandra Dutton discussing and signing A Wheelchair That Flies
Monday, June 16 at 7pm ET
Location: Joseph-Beth Cincinnati
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Boothbay Harbor Signing
for
"A Wheelchair That Flies"
by Sandra Dutton
Thursday, July 24, 2025 - 1:00pm to 3:00pm
Sherman's Bookstore
5 Commercial St
Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538
A Wheelchair That Flies (Paperback)
By Sandra Dutton (Writer/Illustrator)
$24.95
ISBN: 9781949512182
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Swanhorse Press - April 3rd, 2025
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Sandra Dutton signing for
A Wheelchair That Flies
Saturday, July 19, 2025,
9am -12pm
Our Lady Queen of Peace Summer Fair
82 Atlantic Ave.
Boothbay Harbor
Workshops
'A Wheelchair That Flies': A journey of love and magic
Tue, 07/22/2025 - 10:30am
LISA KRISTOFF
Sandra Dutton’s new book, “A Wheelchair That Flies,” invites us into the life of 12-year-old Daniel who teaches readers, and his Fairy Godmother Lily, that needing a wheelchair for legs doesn’t mean you are not, or cannot, be happy. Dutton’s watercolor illustrations are charming, inviting, magical ... and as ever, sure to make readers smile. Written in rhythmic verse, complemented by charming watercolor illustrations, Dutton takes us on a journey we will take many times.
The story opens with Fairy Godmother Lily. She looks out at a star-lit sky listening for a wish uttered by her next charge/child to help. A lavender cloud appears above the child’s location and bursts. And she’s off – cape over her shoulders that takes on a wing-like appearance, magic wand in a pocket, “and leaps out headfirst into the night.” As soon as she arrives at Daniel’s house, in his room, and sees he is in a wheelchair, Lily automatically believes she knows what he wants. She doesn’t need to ask – she knows he wants to walk. That is until, after introductions of course, and after Daniel asks, “What are you, some kind of Barbie doll?” Imagine the mild indignation! “I’m your fairy godmother!” Insert eye roll here.
Lily tries to cast a spell to make Daniel “well.” She tries a few times. Daniel suggests she might want to “work with somone else," adding “I’m happy anyway.”
The walls of Daniel’s room are covered with baseball players. He watches games all of the time. What his Godmother has yet to learn is this: His late father was a ball player for the Louisville Bats. And, maybe, just maybe there is something she can do for Daniel ... Lily may have to put on a baseball thinking cap.
A conversation between Lily and her fairy godmother teacher Giselle in the Magic Shop where Giselle tells her student fairy godmother that spells don’t always work is a treasure.
Dutton weaves her own magic with this one. What does Daniel tell Lily he wants? How does she give/get it for him? You’ll just have to read the book and find out.
A lot of research went into this book begun in 2020 – and not only of the reading variety. Dutton met with families and the children. She recalled one home in Louisville had a large sliding board in the livingroom for their 9-year-old son who was not yet using a wheelchair.
“One woman was depressed because she wanted to have Thanksgiving in a certain place because it would allow a person to roll his chair in. And her father got all upset, pushed out of shape because she wanted to do that,” shared Dutton.
She visited drugstores, photographing wheelchairs (for drawing purposes) and spent a few hours learning how to drive one – ending with a collision into a display of surgical masks. At one store a clerk whose nephew had a muscle-wasting disease told Sandra eventually walking became impossible and that it was “... like trying to lift a 5-pound bag of flour on each foot.”
A major inspiration for this book came in a 2003 New York Times magazine article about Harriet McBryde Johnson. She lived an accomplished and happy life despite muscle wasting disease. She was an author, lawyer and disability rights activist. Johnson, representing the national disability rights group Not Dead Yet, famously took on the Australian philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer who believed parents should be entitled to euthanize their disabled infant or young child. Johnson took him on in a 2003 debate that she wrote about for New York Times magazine.
“I was so impressed with her, and embarrassed and ashamed that I knew so little about that kind of a disease,” Dutton said.
And she’s not alone – how many of us do? “A Wheelchair That Flies” was completed a few years ago. It is Sandra Dutton at her absolute best. I’ve read it twice and it’s so hard not to reveal the magical adventure Daniel and Fairy Godmother Lily share. You know what you have to do: Plan on being at Sherman’s Books on Commercial Street Thursday, June 24 between 1 and 3 p.m. Meet Dutton at her book signing.
The following book review, by Emily Wolinsky, President of NMD (neuromuscular disabilities) United, says it all: “'A Wheelchair That Flies' celebrates disability autonomy and self-direction in ways never captured by traditional fairy godmother stories. Readers will fall in love with Daniel for his confidence, passion, and absolute comfort in his skin. They will empathize with the adorable and fallible Lily, Daniel's fairy godmother. And they will be reminded that wishes, like people, hold unique and precious to the individual.”
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Sandra Dutton at the OLQP book signing in Boothbay Harbor July 19. Courtesy of Wayne Sheridan
