There once was a young girl who loved to draw things. At first it was cartoon animals, Holly Hobbies and unicorn heads. Later it became sketches copied from magazine photos, greeting cards and shoe boxes. She also loved to read, and one of her favorites was a children's literary magazine called Cricket.

In one particular issue, there was a beautiful Chinese fable. Like all of the stories, it had wonderful drawings to go along with the words. For this story, it was dragons. Now mind you, these weren't childish, friendly dragons, nor were they the stuff of nightmares. Rather appropriately, they were Chinese dragons, full of wit and curlicues in black-on-white, with mischievous, intelligent faces. As was her habit, our young girl drew one, and then very carefully rubber cemented it to a piece of cardboard, wrapped it in plastic wrap for a "frame" and ceremoniously gave it to her grandpap for his birthday.

In the meantime, her mother decided she really liked the dragon, and asked if she wouldn't like to draw another one, this time much bigger. Some fresh black markers and a pad of newsprint were, of course, provided. Her sisters soon joined the dragon train, requesting their favorite colors in newsprint giants. At that point, our budding artist did what many other 11-year-olds would have done:

She lost the magazine.

Unthwarted by these dire circumstances, she began to make things up.

Today, she still does...