Author captures young readers; Visit caps off summer school book club.

Byline: Jacqueline Reis

WORCESTER - Author Peter H. Reynolds credits teachers with changing his life, and children have helped shape his stories, so it wasn't a stretch for him to be a book club's guest of honor on the last day of summer school yesterday.

Mr. Reynolds sketched in front of a few dozen Worcester Arts Magnet students and their families at Norrback Avenue School, showed them how he works with animation and brought a book for each child. By the end, a sea of children had all but engulfed him as they asked him to sign their books.

The book club, which started during the school year, is aimed particularly but not exclusively at children for whom English is a second language, said Sergio Paez, the district's manager of English language learners and supplemental support services. It was just a part of the 19-day summer school the district runs every year.

Students such as 7-year-old Sandra Rose Logan were enchanted before Mr. Reynolds even arrived. She showed him her array of dot drawings inspired by his book, "The Dot," which students in the group had read. He suggested she get them printed up.

Mr. Reynolds told the group that he believes everybody is an artist and read "The Dot" to them with the help of 7-year-old Ranna Soheyli, a volunteer from the audience who happened to look a bit like Vashti, the book's main character. Vashti goes from thinking she cannot draw to acclaim at the school art show. The tale concludes with her encouraging another doubting artist, Ramon.

Ranna, who attended summer school with her twin brother, Vafa, received a signed copy of Mr. Reynolds' favorite book: a blank one. (His second favorite, he said, is "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.")

The real-life Vashti was a girl whom Mr. Reynolds met in a coffee shop in Dedham when she was selling flowers about 10 years ago, he said in an interview. She told him she was from Fitchburg, and although she claimed to be raising money for a school she would not name, Mr. Reynolds believed she was selling flowers for a family member who was waiting in a van outside.

Mr. Reynolds, a Chelmsford native who graduated from Fitchburg State College and attended the Massachusetts College of Art, later visited McKay Elementary School in Fitchburg as an author. He mentioned Vashti to staff there, and they said she might have been a girl who attended that school but who had left after someone in the city saw her selling...