The Paper Dragon

Mi Fei is a humble painter of scrolls. Between each day's sunrise and sunset, he paints scenes of the gods and their festivals' portraits of heroes and their deeds. Although the scrolls bring him fame, Mi Fei is content to live in his village, surrounded by people he loves.But one day a messenger enters the village with terrible news: the dragon Sui Jen has awakened from its hundred years' sleep and is destroying everything in its path. Someone must find a way to return Sui Jen to its slumber. To the villagers, only one among them is wise enough to confront the scaly beast -- Mi Fei.The power of the artist's vision and the ever-sustaining nature of love are brought together in Marguerite W. Davol's beautiful story, strikingly interpreted by Robert Sabuda in a series of gatefold illustrations that convey the storytelling majesty of the Chinese narrative scrollmaker's art.

Marguerite W. Davol taught young children for many years at the Gorse Child Study Center at Mount Holyoke College. She is the author of the picture books Black, White, Just Right; Heart of the Wood; How the Snake Got Its Hiss; and a collection of tall tales, Papa Alonzo Leatherby. Marguerite lives with her husband in South Hadley, Massachusetts.