Press Play to hear Sandra Dutton Interviewed by P.T. Bridgeport on When the Moon Sings
Who’s the main character? Lily or Daniel?
They’re both important, and the story wouldn’t work without either of them. Lily is the one who changes and learns the most. But it’s Daniel who’s the teacher.
Were the characters inspired by real people? Have you ever known anyone like Lily or Daniel?
Yes and no. I read many books by writers who were disabled and I visited and talked to people who had children with a muscle-wasting disease. But while Daniel and Lily aren’t patterned after specific people, I adapted traits from members of the families I met and the books I read. I also visited homes and learned that many of them said they couldn’t get by without a sense of humor. They determined that this disorder wouldn’t get them down.
What made you think of turning the wheelchair into a flying machine?
I first thought of Daniel doing this, but of course that would be impossible. At thirteen, he doesn’t have the muscle facility to do this. So I did the next best thing, and let Daniel tell Lily to figure out how to get him to Crosley Field. She thinks this is impossible, that she isn’t capable of doing such a thing, but eventually she comes up with the idea of a wheelchair that flies. I remember I watched an interview with the writers of the movie Back to the Future. They wanted to keep their magic simple and made up that high-powered car, the DeLorean DMC-12, that flew through time. That’s what I wanted to do. Something pure magic that didn’t have to be based on scientific ideas. But gets them where they needed to go. I did, though, reread H.G. Wells’s Time Machine and had Lily assemble the same elements Wells used in his own time machine—“a bit of ivory, some nickel, a little rock crystal, a couple of crystalline bars, and some quartz.”
What did you want Lily to learn from Daniel?
I wanted Lily to understand what Daniel has accomplished, how he has created a fulfilling life, that he is well liked and admired at school. It takes her a while to see this because she has a one-dimensional view of the disabled. She assumes they are miserable and have no hopes and dreams. But I read many books by authors with “muscle wasting disease”, and even though the disease became more and more crippling, they took on challenges and found happiness through personal goals.
Do you like baseball?
Absolutely. I love baseball, and when I was Daniel’s age, I knew far more about it than I do now. I mean I kept up with the players and knew all about batting averages and the standings of the teams. I loved going to Crosley Field in Cincinnati, which is where the story takes place. But of course Daniel knows far more about baseball than I did. He’s memorized the commentary for whole sections of games, having watched old newsreels and read newspaper accounts. As a kid, I attended games at Crosley Field, and my favorite player was Ted Kluzewski.
Why did you write the book in verse?
I didn’t, at first. I have a whole version of this book in prose—a novel with far more characters than it has now, and far more complications. In fact, I had Myrna C. Waxweather, a character in my first book in this one—she was running a school for fairy godmothers and had two other pupils besides Lily. But at a conference I met a woman who read an excerpt I’d brought with me who said, “You have too many characters in this story. Get rid of Myrna. Get rid of the other pupils. Get rid. Get rid. Get rid, until she was basically down to Lily and Daniel. So I went home and thought well, you have nothing to lose. And wouldn’t you know, the story began to work.
You also did the illustrations. What made you decide on those simple line drawings in watercolor?
I wasn’t sure what I would use until I had to do them. I had a dummy already made, with drawings in pencil. First of all, I did most of the illustrations in Maine, in Boothbay Harbor where we used to live but now often go for vacation. We were on the second floor of a carriage house, and I had brought my supplies with me—watercolors, colored pencils, paper, pens, both thick points and thin. I had to keep it simple, with basic materials.
What is the most important idea or thought you would like readers to have after reading your book?
That people who are disabled have much to give. That they have desires, dreams, goals they want to accomplish, and we need to reach out and help them. We need to recognize their talents and give them opportunity, ways to participate, ways to make money. It wasn’t that long ago that disabled children couldn’t even attend public school. I read Judy Heumann’s autobiography (Heumann had contracted polio when she was about two and used a wheelchair to get around) but the principal at her local grade school—and this was in the 1950s—thought she and her wheelchair were a fire hazard, so her early schooling was either at home or in some very un-challenging classes with a few other children who had a variety of problems.
In my book, I show Daniel in a very good school that gives him an aide when he needs one and has an elevator so he can come and go as needed. This is the case in some schools, but far from all, and this is what we need to work toward.
So I hope my book serves as a model in many ways, showing possibilities.
What are you, some kind of Barbie Doll?
Interview With Sandra Dutton on
A Wheelchair That Flies
Where did you get the idea for this book?
I had a character, Lily, who had just finished fairy godmother school and was thrilled to be a working fairy godmother—flying around in fancy dresses at night, fulfilling simple wishes of children. But everything was too easy for her, and I wanted her to have a tougher problem. So I gave her an “almost-thirteen” year old boy with a “muscle wasting” disease. Lily thinks she knows exactly what he wishes for—he wants to walk. But when she says the magic words, he can’t get up.
How did you learn about children like Daniel?
When I first started thinking about this story idea, I read an article in The New York Times Magazine by a woman named Harriet McBryde Johnson who had a degenerative neuromuscular disorder. It was under the broad umbrella of “muscle wasting disease.” There was a picture of her in her wheelchair. She was a lawyer, she said, and had a very fulfilling life, fighting for the rights of the disabled. And she said something else I never forgot: that the disabled had something the world needed. I was embarrassed I knew so little about her disorder. So I began reading up on it and learned that it was mostly boys who inherited the muscle wasting diseases. And there were at least 50 different kinds. That’s when I decided my character Daniel had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, one of the most common.
