UTPA students publish children's book

A class project has led three University of Texas-Pan American to become published authors.

Bonnie Garcia, Jose Canales wrote and Beatriz Guzman Velazquez illustrated a children’s book, “Little Louie’s Big Adventure,” as part of a project for an English composition course they took last year. The class focused on producing works that would help the community.

Students in that class were assigned to create marketing materials for Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park. Other items created included brochures and a MySpace page.

Garcia, Canales and Guzman said they came up with the idea for a children’s book while touring the park for their research.

“Little Louie’s Big Adventure” tells the story of a kingfisher named Louie who travels to Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park in search of his cousin Pablo. Along the way, he meets several creatures who live in the park.

Last week, they gave signed copies of their work to the park, as well as area libraries.

Having their work published and available to the public feels great, said Canales, a 24-year-old senior majoring in English.

“A little surreal too,” said Garcia, 26, who is now in her second semester toward earning a master’s degree in rhetoric and composition writing.

Because the class was just for the fall 2008 semester, the three students had just weeks to develop a story line and collaborate with Guzman to illustrate the book. Guzman said she had a two-week window to sketch and paint pictures for the book.

“It was hard to take pictures I took and put them into illustrations,” said Guzman, a 22-year-old senior majoring in art and English.

Guzman used watercolor to create the pictures.

“Watercolor is very soft. I noticed everything was very soft, the trees, the water,” she said.

Their professor, Philip Zwerling, admits he tried to discourage the three from taking on such a large endeavor because of the time constraints, but he’s glad they didn’t listen to him.

“In my years of teaching, (this) is one of the most impressive projects I’ve seen,” Zwerling told librarians, park officials and representatives of organizations receiving copies of the book.

The university published 40 copies to be distributed.

Jennifer Hall, assistant superintendent of Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park, said the park plans to have the books available in its nature center, which is currently under construction. Park employees and volunteers may also use it during the park’s Creature Feature event, in which the public takes a tour through the park in search of animals.

Overall, Hall said she was impressed by everything the class produced and already is working with Zwerling’s current class on other materials.

“There’s been a lot of really good stuff from this,” she said.

Garcia, Canales and Guzman said they would like to revisit the project and translate it into Spanish if time allows them to do so.

Jennifer L. Berghom covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.