Peggy Carrick's English Language Learners students at Hoover Elementary live adventurous lives - at least they have adventurous imaginations.

Several of Carrick's first- and second-grade students wrote books based on the popular "Flat Stanley" character theme and Friday afternoon held a reading for their fellow Hoover Huskies.

Flat Kyle Yim could be found on the top of a mail truck. Flat Julie Lee explored the ocean, swimming with whales and dolphins. Flat Jaejin Kim took to flight in an airplane and Bojan Soskic elevated himself to Flat King Bojan.

Second-grader Alex Vartanov, 8, invited students to "Come to Paradise with Flat Alex."

"It was fun reading in front of people I didn't know," said Alex, who is of Russian and Georgian ancestry. "I got to see people from different classes."

Alex said he would like to continue writing, next time about his favorite hero, Spider-Man.

Carrick said this was her first "Meet the Authors" event at the school.

"We have 37 English language learner students in grades K-5," Carrick said. "I work individually with students for 30 minutes each day. Some of these kids have been with me only a couple weeks or maybe a month. They were amazing."

Carrick said students at the school speak 13 languages: Serbian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, Arabic, Taiwanese, Farsi, Russian, Samoan, Spanish and Norwegian.

"We were working on prepositional phrases and this helps mix it up," Carrick said. "It makes it fun and the kids interject their personal values into their writing. It is an opportunity for them to write something and share it with other children. Often, these kids are very quiet in the classroom."

Carrick said it was also a way for other students to see where the language learner students go for a portion of each day.

As the young readers left the Hoover library, Carrick gave each one a "High Five" and praised them. "Wow, you were great," Carrick said. "How hard it was for you, but you did it. You did it."

Carrick said some of the students couldn't speak any English when they started the program.

"I'm amazed at how successful this project has been," Carrick told parents who came to watch their children read.

Each of the readers was allowed to pick six coloring pages that depicted scenes in which they could place their photo.

"They really understood what each of the photo placements meant," Carrick said. "You saw how proud they were. I want the English Language Learner kids to feel included in school. This is a chance for them to talk about their work and to be proud of what they have done. They can feel equal to their peers."

Flat Stanley is a character from a 1964 children's book in which Stanley Lambchop is flattened by a bulletin board given to him by his father. Flat Stanley gets into all kinds of adventures due to his new shape. In 1995, a school teacher in Canada used the concept to help promote letter writing by his students.

Students read the book and draw their own Flat Stanley characters. They create a journal of places and events attended by their Flat Stanley and then send them to other students somewhere around the globe. In 2005, more than 6,000 classes from 47 countries participated.

Alex Paul can be contacted at alex.paul@lee.net or by calling 758-9526.