Hitting the Books, Then the Pillows : Education: An El Monte elementary school mixes literature and a slumber party with eye-opening results.

Gerardo Hernandez, 8, showed up at the school cafeteria with sleeping bag in hand and agenda all mapped out.

“We get to see movies, read stories and stay up as long as we want,” he explained. “I brought my pillow so when the lights go out I can start a pillow fight.”

Hernandez and about 80 of his classmates at Potrero Elementary School in El Monte spent Friday night at the school’s second annual slumberless slumber party. But, despite Hernandez’s plans, the idea wasn’t for the children to hit each other with pillows. It was for them to hit the books.

Cuddled together, with only one flashlight between them, 10-year- old Concepcion Maldonado read Leo Lionna’s “Alexander & The Wind-up Mouse” to her friend Claudia Caloca, two years her junior. “I’m a good reader,” Maldonado said. “I always go to (Claudia’s) house and help her so she can learn her words.”

Principal Suzette Johnston said the late-night outing was new for many of the children, and it took some convincing before parents agreed to let them attend the school-sponsored event. She said that because many of the students come from highly protective immigrant families, she spent hours on the telephone giving assurances.

“I got a lot of calls from mothers saying their children really wanted to go,” Johnston said. “They said it was OK with them, but that the fathers said no.

“Parents are more cautious about letting their kids spend the night out these days,” she added, alluding to fears about gangs in the San Gabriel Valley community where the school is located. “We had to convince them that this was a safe environment for their kids to do something special.”

Still, for some children, spending the night away from home was a little scary.

Karla Castillo, 8, whose dad usually tucks her in and reads her a story, sheepishly brought her bunny, “Boo Boo,” with her to the sleep-over party.

“I can’t sleep without him,” Castillo said of the threadbare stuffed animal. “I thought kids would make fun of me because I sleep with a bunny. But then I saw they had toys to sleep with, too.”

Most of the children were more than a little excited to spend the night away from siblings and parents.

“I don’t have to take a shower,” said Michael Martinez, 8, as he ticked off the advantages of a night away from home. “I get to stay up as late as I want . . . and get silly.”

His pal Michael Herrera agreed.

“I’m going to get wild when the lights go out,” Herrera promised. “I don’t have to listen to my parents or clean my room. This is a lot of fun.”

For Luis Ramirez, 9, an evening of nonstop eating was his idea of paradise. There was pizza, popcorn, cupcakes, Kool-Aid, cookies and milk at midnight, and then pancakes for breakfast.

“They eat so much that by the time they get to the end, they don’t want any more,” Johnston said.

Most of the night, though, was designed to give the youngsters a little food for thought. They watched movies based on storybook classics, including “A Cricket in Times Square,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “The Velveteen Rabbit” and “Where the Wild Things Are.”

There also were reading circles. Wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, “If You Love Me, Read Me A Story,” teacher Janet Lloyd kept one small group of youngsters enthralled with an ebullient rendition of “Cowardly Clyde,” a yarn about a horse that is scared by a giant monster.

Said pupil Mariza Ramirez: “Sometimes it’s boring to read, but I like it when the teacher reads.”

Despite their best-laid plans for pulling an all-nighter, half the students tuckered out by 2:30 a.m.--and only six actually hung in long enough to see the dawn.

“Little boys were making bets,” Johnston said. “But usually the ones who talk the loudest are the ones who fall asleep first.”

Before they closed their eyes, though, many of the children seemed to get the reading message.

“I was reading under the covers with my flashlight,” said Michael Cobo, 8, as he waited for his mother to pick him up Saturday morning. “When I grow up I’m going to read a lot. Because if I don’t know how to read, trouble will come to me.”