Baby's first book comes courtesy of some fourth-graders

The pupils personalize a copy of the book they wrote for each newborn.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- Oh, baby, you've got a lot to learn. Take it from the fourth-graders.
One of the most important lessons, say the pupils in Agnes Ginnetti's class at Struthers Elementary School, is the significance of reading.
To introduce the city's newborns to reading, Mrs. Ginnetti's class wrote, illustrated and published a baby's first book of colors.
Since the winter holidays, some 40 infants have been born to Struthers residents, and the fourth-graders have sent a personalized copy of the book to every one listed in the birth announcements.
Getting started
The project started when Keary Iarussi and Aimee Wildes, both 10, were prompted by their teacher to write a story for the new arrivals.
It took a while to settle on a theme, Keary said. "We had different ideas and we were going to do poems." But once they decided to write about colors, the two classmates finished writing within an hour.
Yellow blocks, a green sandbox, purple gelatin, a blue ball and red crib are among the objects the baby in the story -- always named after the newborn recipient -- encounters.
Production
To mass produce the books, Keary and Aimee solicited help from their classmates. Tim Roddy, 10, a bit of a computer wizard, is in charge of personalizing each book and typesetting.
The story is exactly the same, so once Tim organized the text into paragraphs for each page, all he had to change was the name of the baby.
"I type the name and then when I come to the next baby, I slash it out and put in the new one," he said.
Tim prints the title page on a pink or blue sheet, depending on the sex of the baby, and rearranges lines to accommodate extra long or hyphenated surnames.
Aimee and classmate Ashley Whited composed a lullaby for the end of the book, and the other 21 pupils colored copies of the pictures, organized, cut and pasted blocks of text and the illustrations on spiral-bound pages.
Covers are laminated, as is a copy of the baby's birth announcement, which is enclosed.
Welcome letter
A letter welcoming the new arrivals informs the infants that "the world is full of many special things and opportunities. Being born in America allows you to be free to dream. Struthers schools will help those dreams become realities."
The letter, signed "Your First School Friends," also tells the babies that "the key to dreams and opportunities is reading. Great things happen to people who read."
A letter to parents encourages them to read to their children often to foster interest in books.
Publishing the book offered advanced students a challenge, all of the pupils an opportunity to work as part of a team, and helped them become involved in their community, Ginnetti said.
Extra effort
The children realized that what they were doing was so important, she said, that the books were completed outside of class. Some pupils came to school early, stayed late, or worked on the project after they finished classroom assignments.
They'd read the birth announcements in the newspaper in the evening and then come to school ready to assemble however many books were needed for babies born the day before.
Aimee and Keary both said they'd consider publishing the book for babies born throughout the summer if they can get the required supplies.
Tim isn't ruling out publishing another book even further down the road -- like when he grows up.
Publishing, typesetting, writing -- they're all possible career choices. "It all depends on what interests me," he said.
kubik@vindy.com