From her library’s ashes, she finds a teaching moment

The stacks in Jacquie Hundley’s library were made of cheap plastic containers and stood barely hip high. But they held more than 400 books for the fifth-graders she teaches in Compton, books that her school could not provide.

It took seven years for Hundley to assemble the collection, reaching into her pocket again and again to buy this volume on nebulae, that story by Roald Dahl and, of course, the latest Harry Potter.

Then, in a matter of minutes, all were gone, reduced to ashes and molten piles when the garage behind Hundley’s apartment in Westlake caught fire Wednesday.

“I was just in shock,” said Hundley, 42, whose Anderson Elementary class begins the school year today.

Colleagues quickly passed the hat and gave her $300 to replace some of the books. On Monday, Hundley was baking cookies as a thank-you while trying to not to dwell on the fact that the money would cover less than 10% of the loss, and that she had no renter’s insurance.

“My books were all right here,” she said, pointing to the empty, soot-smeared floor of the blackened garage, the wood-framed roof showing daylight, the smell of smoke still strong.

Hundley, whose father is former Los Angeles Laker Rod Hundley, now an announcer for the Utah Jazz, said it was not unusual for Compton teachers to tap personal funds for books and other instructional materials.

And the need for a broad reading selection is crucial at Anderson Elementary, Hundley said, because so many of the students speak English as a second language, come from poor families and have few books in the home.

“The kids have to read 20 minutes every night for homework, so I had to make sure they had books to read,” she said.

She had managed to pluck the remains of just five books from the ruins, one of which she now held in her hands: a Funk & Wagnalls Wildlife Encyclopedia, its covers fused.

Neighbor Karleen George said several other tenants lost belongings in the fire, but the destruction of Hundley’s library was “the worst of the worst because she cares so much about those kids.”

Hundley, who studied art before becoming a teacher, had jump-started her collection with a donation of more than 200 books from a friend who worked for a magazine in Phoenix.

A large number of her books were quality hardcovers. There were several sets on such topics as the 50 states, the solar system and -- perhaps her favorite -- art history. “They were all hand-picked,” she said.

She stored the books in the garage during the summer, and it would take several car trips to transport them to Anderson each September.

Fred Easter, a Compton Unified School District board member and a retired teacher and administrator in the district, said the agency might be able to help Hundley restock her library.

“There is a budget for supplemental materials,” Easter said. “She needs to make her needs known, and we’ll see how we can meet those needs.”

Hundley was grateful to hear that but had her doubts. “I think that would be a long shot,” she said. “There are so many things the schools need to buy. To focus on one individual teacher may not be realistic.”

Meanwhile, Hundley’s bicycle was also partly melted in the fire. Two neighborhood boys asked if they could salvage it, and she made them a proposition: Whoever writes the better poem about the bike can take it.

The winning poem:

Give me the bike

I’ll make it right

I’ll go to the park and sit under the tree

I’ll go with my friends, even though there are just three

“You never know when a teaching moment will come,” she said.

“That was a teaching moment.”

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paul.pringle@latimes.com