This is not one of those scary mean dragons. Draco, the protagonist of A Very Naughty Dragon (Scholastic), only wants to be big like his father and go on hunts. But before that he has to negotiate a bunch of bullies and build self confidence.
Sarah Rose
The book is a collaboration between well-known author Paro Anand and nine-year-old Sarah Rose. When Paro’s publisher told her that her earlier book, A Very Naughty Bear , was doing well, she thought of A Very Naughty… series.
‘“I turned to Sarah, my friend, Jaya's daughter and a voracious reader, and asked her to suggest an animal. Without a moment's hesitation, she said, ‘Komodo Dragons’. I said, ‘That’s a great idea, but I don’t know enough about them.’ Confidently she said, ‘I know quite a bit and I could do the research for you’.” Sarah has been “fascinated by Komodo dragons” since she was in Class 2. “I know a lot about them,” she says happily.
A Very Naughty Dragon by Paro Anand and Sarah Rose published by Scholastic
The collaboration was not token, Paro is very clear. “It was a 50-50 partnership. Through my travels, working on another novel and Sarah's long school hours and multiple extracurricular activities, we had Face Time discussions and e-mail conversations. It was actually much smoother and easier than I thought. Certainly easier than a collaboration I did with a gentleman who is a professional writer,” she adds wryly.
However she is a bit disappointed at having to edit out one input from Sarah; “that Draco eats his parents because he is rather fed up with them! You know how it is; some parents feel that children will do exactly what they read in a story and then, heaven knows, the book may have been banned!”
Sarah explains that Paro “would guide me when I got something wrong, correct me and invite me to parties. She would also help me whenever I got stuck. It was a great experience working with her.”
Paro Anand
Of course, both their takeaways from their collaboration differ. Sarah has learnt that “it takes a lot of time, effort and planning to write a book. And when you think that you can now relax, you have to still do some work.” Paro says she “relinquished all ego. I wasn't a senior writer giving a chance to a little kid; we were equal partners with great respect for each other. Second, what made it so perfect was how well-read Sarah was and how her school/parents had taught her the art of research. She knew how to engage with story and also had the wonderful ability to take a fact and, as she says, ‘turn it upside down’. It added a fun and unexpected element to our work that I have never got writing on my own.”
I wonder why they call Draco naughty, when he’s actually very determined. Sarah agrees but argues that “he snuck out of his home to practice and went a little too far. He left his home against his parents’ permission.” Paro, on the contrary, says this never occurred to her.
While Sarah says she would like to write more, “individually and in collaboration”, Paro has a lot happening. “I have finally finished a novel on displacement: being driven out of one's homeland and finding one’s roots again,” she says. “Told from the point of view of two very different young girls: a Kashmiri Pandit girl and a child from a made-up tribe of the highlands. I have been working on it for over two years but it's more relevant today than when I started it.”
She’s also very excited about “a fellowship from the Takshila Foundation that will publish my new writings in Hindi. My books have been translated into foreign languages, but not those of my country.” She is also working on a book that “examines the ideas of freedom and how it means different things to different people.”
