How many times have you said, “I wonder why….”

I have had a fascination with dragons for many years. While living in Poland in the early 1990s, I visited Krakow, which credits a dragon for giving the city its name, “belonging to Krak.” In Warsaw a restaurant carries the name of another mythological creature which lived and guarded a treasure in a basement of Old Town. These creatures were all malevolent. The opposite is true of the dragon, celebrated at the Chinese New Year.

One day my husband and I sat at a small restaurant table sipping a cup of coffee. Perhaps I’d just worked on a story of the Krakow dragon. I asked, “I wonder why people thought the dragon breathed fire.” My husband is never without an answer to any question. Together we began to build the a story of why dragon’s breathe fire.

It is now many years later, but I have just finished another edit of that story for a picture book. “When I was just a little dragon, Mama and I lived in a dark cave beneath the high stone castle beside the river…..”

It is a pourquoi tale designed for ages four to six. Now I must find an editor and a publisher. For me this is the hardest part of writing for children. Anyone interested?