Chris Van Allsburg THE POLAR EXPRESS Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech This speech was given in The first book I remember reading is proba- This somewhat obsessive approach to 1986. The Caldecott Medal bly the same book many people my age reading manifested itself again during for “the most distinguished recall as their first. It was profusely illustrat- summer after third grade. My neighbor had a American picture book for ed and recounted the adventures and collection of every Walt Disney comic book children” was awarded to conflicts o fits three protagonists, Dick, Jane ever published. I took my little wagon to his Chris Van Allsburg for The and Spot. Actually, the lives of this trio were house and hauled every issue back to my Polar Express. not all that interesting. A young reader’s bedroom. For a solid week I did nothing but reward for struggling though those syllables read about Pluto, Mickey, Donald, and Daisy. at the bottom of the page was to discover It was spooky. By the sixth day they’d that Spot got a bath. Not exactly an exciting become quite real to me and were turning up revelation, Especially since you’d already see in my dreams. After I returned the comics, I Spot getting his bath in the picture at the top felt very lonely, as if a group of lively house of the page. guests had left suddenly. The Dick, Jane and Spot primers have As years passed, my taste in literature gone to that book shelf in the sky. I have, in has changed. I do, however, still have some ways, a tender feeling toward them, so obsessive reading habits. I pore over every I think it’s for the best. Their modern incar- word on the cereal box at breakfast, often nation would be too painful to look at. Dick more than once. You can ask me anything and Jane would have their names changed to about Shredded Wheat. I also spend more Jason and Jennifer. Faithful Spot would be time in the bathroom than is necessary, transformed into an Afghan hound and the determined to keep up with my New Yorker syllables at the bottom of the page would subscription. reveal that the children were watching MTV. It seems strange now, considering my In third grade my class paid its first visit susceptibility to the power of the printed to the school library as prospective book word, that I’d been reading for more than borrowers. I was on this occasion that we twenty years before I thought about writing. learned about the fascinating Dewey decimal I had, by that time, staked out visual art as system. None of us really understood this my form of self-expression. But my visual art principle of cataloging books, but we were was and is very narrative. I feel fortunate inclined to favor it. Any system named that I’ve become involved with books as Dewey was all right with us. We looked another opportunity for artistic expression. forward to hearing about the Huey and Over the years that have passed since my Louie decimal system, too. first book was published, a question I’ve The book I checked out on my first visit been asked often is, “Where do your ideas was the biography of Babe Ruth. I started come from?” I’ve given a variety of answers reading it at school and continued reading it to this question, such as: “I steal them from at home. I read till dinner and opened the the neighborhood kids,” “I send away for book again after dessert, finally taking it to them by mail order,” and “They are beamed bed with me. The story of Babe Ruth was an to me from outer space.” interesting one, but I don’t think it was as It’s not really my intention to be rude or compelling as that constant reading sug- smart-alecky. The fact is, I don’t know where gests. There was something else happening: I my ideas come from. Each story I’ve written just simply did not know when to stop or starts out as a vague idea that seems to be why. Having grown up with television, I was going nowhere, then suddenly materializes accustomed to watching something until I as a completed concept. It almost seems like was finished. I assumed that as long as the a discovery, as if the story was always there. book was there I should read it to the end. The few elements I start out with are The idea of setting the book aside uncom- actually clues. If I figure out what they mean, pleted just didn’t occur to me. I can discover the story that’s waiting. 1 When I began thinking about The Polar wooden floor. It might have been the case Express, I had a single image in mind: a young that the Easter Bunny had already become boy sees a train standing still in front of his an iffy proposition for me. In any event this house one night. The boy and I took a few was just the moment the maturing skeptic in different trips on that train, but we did not, me was waiting for. I gained the truth, but I in a figurative sense, go anywhere. Then I paid a heavy price for it. The Easter Bunny headed north, and I got the feeling that this died that night. time I’d picked the right direction, because The application of logical or analytical the train kept rolling all the way to the North thought may be the enemy of belief in the Pole. At that point the story seemed literally fantastic, but it is not, for me, a liability in its to present itself. Who lives at the North illustration. When I conceived of the North Pole. Santa. When would the perfect time Pole in The Polar Express, it was logic that for a visit be? Christmas Eve. What happens insisted it be a vast collection of factories. I on Christmas Eve at the North Pole? Un- don’t see this as a whim of mine or even as doubtedly a ceremony of some kind, a an act of imagination. How could it look any ceremony requiring a child, delivered by a other way, given the volume of toys pro- train that would have to be named the Polar duced every year? Express. I do not find that illustrating a story has Fortunately, or perhaps I should say the same quality of discovery as writing it. As necessarily, that premise consistent with my I consider a story, I see it quite clearly. own feeling, especially when it comes to Illustrating is simply a matter of drawing accepting fantastic propositions like Santa something I’ve already experienced in my Claus. Santa is our culture’s only mythic mind’s eye. Because I see the story unfold as figure truly believed in by a large percentage if it were on film, the challenge is deciding of the population. It’s a fact that most of the precisely which moment should be illustrat- true believers are under eight years old, and ed and from which point of view. that’s a pity. The rationality we all embrace There are disadvantages to seeing the as adults makes believing in the fantastic images so clearly. The actual execution can difficult, if not impossible. Lucky are the seem redundant. And the finished work is children who know there is a jolly fat man in always disappointing because my imagina- a red suit who pilots a flying sleigh. We tion exceeds the limits of should envy them. And we should envy the my skills. people who are so certain Martians will land A fantasy of mine is to be tempted by the in their back yard that they keep a loaded devil with a miraculous machine, a machine Polaroid camera by the back door. The that could be hooked up to my brain and inclination to believe in the fantastic may instantly produce the finished art from the strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, images in my mind. I’m sure it’s the devil but it’s really a gift. A world that might have who’d have such a device, because it would Bigfoot and the Loch ness monster is clearly devour the artistic soul. Or half of it anyway. superior to one that definitely does not. Conceiving of something is only part of the I don’t mean to give the impression that creative process. Giving life to the concep- my own sense of what is possible is not tion is the other half. The struggle to master shaped by rational, analytical thought. As a medium, whether it’s words, notes, paint, much as I’d like to meet the tooth fairy on an or marble, is the heroic part of making art. evening walk, I don’t really believe it can Still, if any of you run into the devil and he’s happen. got this machine, give him my name. I would When I was seven or eight, on the night at least like to get a demonstration. before Easter, my mother accidentally An award does not change the quality of dropped a basket of candy outside my a book. I’m acutely aware of the deficiencies bedroom door. I understood what the sound in all of my work. I sometimes think I’d like to was and what it meant. I heard my mother, in do over everything I’ve ever done and get it a loud whisper, trying unsuccessfully to keep right.