VENTURA : Students Bring Their Stories to Life for Elementary Youngsters

Seven-year-old Eddie Newman sat quietly while Chris Mellin, 17, a junior at Ventura High School, read a book called “Gable the Grappler.”

Six other elementary students sat cross-legged at Chris’ feet while he explained that Gable--a fictional star wrestler--learns an important lesson: You can’t win every time.

As soon as Chris closed the book, another high school student, 15-year-old Jose Lopez, shouted: “Who wants to wrestle?”

Eddie jumped up, practically giddy with excitement, and crashed onto a wrestler’s mat brought to the Ventura High gymnasium by Chris, Jose and other members of the school’s wrestling team.

Four other young boys joined the heap. Then the bell rang, and it was time for another book.

Hands-on activity was the hallmark of a readers’ fair put on by Ventura High students in the Bob Tuttle Gymnasium this week. During the 90-minute festival, high school students read 40 original picture books they had written, illustrated and bound.

To make the fair even more enticing for younger schoolchildren, the teen-agers created colorful habitats that reflected their book’s theme. The wrestling story, for instance, came alive when the students were invited to take on real-life, high school wrestlers.

And for a book about four singing sharks, Ventura High sophomores Sera Haycox and Monika Navarro created a stage that included blue and green streamers twisting down from a plastic frame to resemble waves.

To complete the underwater feel, the teen-agers added a basket of shells on the ground, pinned cut-out pictures of sharks and tropical fish against a green-cloth backdrop, and handed out toy sea creatures for the children to hold during the presentation.

“I love being with children,” Monika said. “And it’s great to get immediate feedback on our book.”

The book festival was conceived by Ventura High English teacher Dave Baldwin. High school students have written books and read them to children for years, he said. But the high school students usually travel to the elementary schools, he said.

He decided this year to invite students from Lincoln, Pierpont and Blanche Reynolds elementary schools to come to the high school, Baldwin said. That allowed students to create colorful reading areas, he said.

Although about 200 students write children’s books each year, only the top 40 are chosen for the readers’ fair, Baldwin said. And the reaction by young children is instant proof whether the book is a success, he said.

“These little kids are about as good a critic as you can get,” he said.