All aboard

03:06 PM EDT on Thursday, October 28, 2004

BY FAYE B. ZUCKERMAN
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Sandor Bodo

A copy of the $3,000, limited edition of The Polar Express. Proceeds will go toward CVS Pharmacy/Draw-a-Breath, an asthma education program.

In the magical world created by children's book author-illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, a boy rides the Polar Express to the North Pole to witness Christmas Eve festivities.

But if that same Pole-bound locomotive appeared tonight on the front lawn of Van Allsburg's East Side home, his wife, Lisa Morrison, would put off boarding -- at least until Nov. 10. That's the day after the Providence film premiere of the Hollywood adaptation of her husband's top-selling Polar Express.

Based on the pre-release publicity the movie is getting for its cutting-edge digital imagery, the film is poised to be a fall blockbuster. It is directed by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Back to the Future) and stars Tom Hanks, who plays multiple computer-generated characters.

For Morrison, the Nov. 9 Providence premiere is a onetime opportunity to raise money for CVS Pharmacy/Draw-A-Breath, the asthma education program she and her husband created in 1996 at Hasbro Children's Hospital. Their daughter Sophia, 13, was diagnosed with a severe form of the disease at age 4.

Morrison's goal is to turn the asthma-education center into a self-sustaining entity. To do this she needs $1.2 million. CVS this fall donated $500,000, and her plan is to collect the remaining $700,000 through tax-deductible events linked to the film's premiere.

The route she has chosen for her fundraising journey involves three major projects. The first is the sale of 175 leather-bound copies of Polar Express. The limited-edition books each cost $3,000 and are signed by her husband, Hanks and Zemeckis.

The second fundraising plan involves selling 200 hand-hammered silver Christmas bells for $250 each. The third is a $200 per-person premierescreening and railroad-themed party, catered by Mills Tavern on Nov. 9 at the Showcase Seekonk Cinemas.

Morrison says she is riding high because she has raised close to half her $700,000 goal. Nearly 50 percent of the leather-bound books have sold. Only a handful of tickets are left for the red-carpet party where the bells will be on sale.

Morrison, 54, is a tiny bespectacled brunette with just about as much energy as the Polar Express at full steam. She sips coffee in her living room as she explains the three-pronged fundraising effort that since May has become her full-time job. In the last month, she says she has been working 24/7 on the projects, which she can barely keep from becoming a runaway train.

She has assembled a large support group of friends, colleagues and consultants, many of whom have either donated or charged minimal fees for goods and services.

"My husband, Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis working together. When will they ever converge in the same place again like this?" said Morrison whose husband has written and illustrated 15 books. "Everybody understands that this is once-in-a-lifetime."

Joseph Gilbert of Gilbert Designs Associates on the East Side took charge of the design of the limited-edition book. The cover is emblazoned with an acorn-shaped sleigh bell made of silver foil.

The illustrated story is the latest printing of Polar Express, which, for the first time, has been done with digitally mastered separations. The process yields crisper reproductions of Van Allsburg's original drawings.

"This is the printing that Chris has been the most happy about," says Gilbert, a longtime friend who lives in Barrington. "Chris also had the idea for the bell for the cover, and drew it for the (collector's) book. This bell is a little fatter and a more detailed one. It's original art."

The front and back covers are Christmas red, made of goat skin imported from the Scottish Highlands. The edges are notched to add richness.

The notches are called "blind tooling," explains Eric Zimmerman of Markey & Asplund Bookbinders in Foster. "It's done with a brass tool that is heated. The combination of pressure against the slightly dampened leather burns in the pattern."

Markey & Asplund, an 80-year-old company, is hand sewing the bindings for each of the collector books, which will be packaged inside an olive green slip case designed by East Side custom-box makers Portfoliobox Inc.

A rare-book seller in Manhattan, Peter Glassman, owner of Books of Wonder, consulted on the price. He says that copies of Polar Express from the first printing in 1985 sell for between $1,000 and $1,500.

He compares the price for the leather-bound book to the $25,000 price tag now attached to copies of The Wizard of Oz that were signed in the late 1930s by cast members, including Judy Garland and director Victor Fleming.

"In the case of The Wizard of Oz, you received a regular book with signatures," he says. "You don't get the author's autograph because he had died."

Glassman adds, "The Polar Express has Chris's signature plus Hanks and Zemeckis, the heavy hitters. It's leather-bound. The printing is the best one yet. It's priced to be an investment."

Journal photo / Bill Murphy

Author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg and his wife, Lisa Morrison, at their Providence home.

Morrison's excitement for the collector's publication is nearly rivaled by her enthusiasm for the limited edition sterling silver bell with a leather strap. "It's a knockout," she says of the $250 bell fashioned after the one the boy asks Santa for in her husband's Christmas tale. "Chris has told people that the bell represents the spirit he had intended for it. It has Old World charm."

Rumford jewelry designer Tamra Motl, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate who has sold her works to Morrison, teamed up with Valerio Albarello of Taunton for the project. The two have been hand-hammering the silver into the distinctive acorn shape.

"I'm proud of it, and I am glad that it was made in United States," she notes. "It's tasteful and quality."

Motl and Albarello will make 400 bells. Two hundred will be shipped to Chris' hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., to raise money for pediatric oncology, and the rest will be sold in Rhode Island.

Morrison, who is also from Michigan, and Van Allsburg, 55, met in the early 1970s as art students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It was love at first sculpture for Morrison.

She saw her husband's sculptures on display at the art school, and, she says, "I had to meet the person who did this beautiful work."

Van Allsburg and Morrison moved to Providence, where as a graduate student at RISD he studied sculpting. She taught art at an elementary school in Olneyville.

To relax, he would spend his evenings sketching. Morrison, who used picture books as a teaching tool, encouraged him to continue drawing. A family friend, author-illustrator David Macaulay, suggested Morrison try to sell the illustrations.

Soon publishers were interested, and sending along stories to go along with his drawings. Disappointed with the material, Van Allsburg took a break from sculpting, and wrote the tale for his first-published work, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.

It came out in 1979 and, in 1980, was awarded the Caldecott Honor by the American Library Association. Two of his titles -- Jumanji in 1981 and his sixth book Polar Express in 1986 -- picked up the association's top award, the Caldecott Medal, which is considered the Oscar of children's literature. (Jumanji was made into a movie starring Robin Williams in 1995.)

Six million copies of Polar Express have been printed, according Megan Butler, a spokeswoman for Van Allsburg's publisher, Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston. It has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list every fall since 1985.

"It never went out of print," Butler reports.

Van Allsburg describes Polar Express as a simple story. "It works differently for each reader," he says. "A little older kid may see themselves in the boy. They may have doubts (about Santa Claus) and maybe those doubts are diminished for another year."

The story stems from an image Van Allsburg had of a steam train in the forest at winter time. "I imagined walking up to it and being able to call out a destination," Van Allsburg adds. "It started becoming a magic-carpet story."

Since his mind's eye saw winter, he wondered where a boy might go. "I thought about the North Pole on Christmas Eve," he notes. "Some kind of celebration must go on for the thousands of elves who made all those toys."

For months, Morrison has been the conductor of a fundraising locomotive that will arrive at its final destination on Nov. 9. If the Polar Express appeared on Morrison's front lawn on Nov. 10, she would grab a ride into hibernation.

"I'm changing my phone number after this," she says. "I want to focus on my family and being a mom (to Sophia and Anna, 9)." She adds, "I'm done."

For more information on the book, bell and premiere party for the Polar Express, call (401) 444-0390 or (401) 331-0385. Additional information on the collector's edition can be found at www.drawabreath.com; www.chrisvanallsburg.com offers information on the author-illustrator.