Authors, Artists Visit Valley View

Johnson, a 16-year La Cañada Flintridge resident, told a story about her horrible third grade teacher Mrs. Pettigrew and drew a caricature on which she later added a moustache, goatee and a hairy wart. The students laughed, then groaned when Johnson told them she had drawn on a real picture of the teacher ... and forgotten to take it home from school.

Although she described her presentation as "a lounge act for the elementary school set," Johnson vividly explained to them how her real-life experiences inspired her later illustrations in books. Holding a picture of herself as a 6-year-old girl dressed in a homemade tutu and a picture she drew for a book called "All Tutus Should Be Pink," she told the class, "You see, they're not exactly the same. But I remembered how it felt when I got my first tutu and that feeling is what I drew."

Jeri Chase Ferris brought the students a completely different experience. The author of nonfiction books told the story of Biddy Mason, a former slave who walked from Mississippi to Los Angeles and later became a wealthy landowner. Her slide show of pictures the Mississippi River that Mason had to cross and early pictures of Los Angeles drew gasps from the sixth graders in Bob Gifford's class.

The students asked how long it takes her to write a book (two years from start to publication) and why she likes to write nonfiction. "I like to be treated fairly," she said. "You like to be treated fairly. A lot of these people were not treated fairly, just because of the color of their skin or because they were women. I want to bring them back to life and tell their stories so they can get the recognition they deserve."

Author and illustrator Lisze Bechtold explained that the inspiration for Buster, the star of her "Buster the Very Shy Dog," was her own dog Buster. She told the morning kindergarteners in Jodi Fitzgibbons and Naehi Wong's classes that the real Buster was a mixed-breed and had spots. Then she shared one of her secrets with the students: "I didn't want to have to keep track of all those spots, so I made him a purebred Labrador, so I could just make him all black." All black is much easier to draw, she added.

By the end of the day, the Valley View students had seen inside the process of making a book. They had learned where writers get ideas and how illustrators learned to draw. They had learned how a book is made and how long it takes to get a book published. They had learned that even bad students can be successful if they just keep trying. And they had learned to never, never leave incriminating doodles lying around in the classroom.