Fourth graders at Reed Elementary School have learned a valuable writing lesson. That is, there's a lot more to publishing a book than just writing it.

They also learned that book publishing involves teamwork, not just individual creativity.

Ten-year-old Andrew Lynn said, "Making books isn't as easy as it seems. They're pretty hard to make."

Several of his classmates echoed that same thought after they finished their book publishing project. The assignment to make a book was given to them by St. Louis children's book authors Patricia and Fred McKissack.

The McKissacks ran a series of closed-circuit video conferences on the subject of writing and book publishing. (Young Saint Louis.com gave samples of work by middle school authors last month. To read those articles, click here.)

The project for elementary school kids included more than writing. The McKissacks asked the Reed School kids also to illustrate and then publish their writing in book form.

Eleven-year-old Bryce Potter said the team decided to do a book about leprechauns. Those are fanciful Irish elves who "are short, greedy and happy," Bryce said.

He added, "We were brainstorming about a subject and I threw in the idea of leprechauns. Everyone else on the team liked that." The group also decided to aim the book at kindergarten and first grade kids, rather than kids their own age.

Others on the Leprechaun project were Scott Rehnquist, Matt Silverstein, Dana Lambie, Whitney Mingle and Grace Rossow. Andrew and Scott did most of the writing. Then, they also joined Bryce and Matt to do the illustration.

Dana was the editor and Whitney the book designer. Grace was the publisher.

Andrew said, "The toughest things were figuring out the plot and then getting all pieces ready for publishing."

He said the teamwork "helped our creative thinking a lot."

Ten-year-old Jessica Langsam was the illustrator for her team's book, entitled "African-American Entertainers." She also said publishing was tough. "It isn't so simple. You can't get published right away; it takes time."

But, she said her experience on illustrating the book fits right into her career plans. "I want to be an illustrator of children's books," she said. She said she was impressed by the quality of the illustrations in the McKissacks' books.

The writing in the "Entertainers" is in poetry form. Each poem is about a different person. Jessica decided to write her poem about famed singer Marian Anderson. She said she focused on Anderson because her sister had written a report on the singer.

Nine-year-old Kelsey Saettele did her poem on fashion model Beverly Johnson. Kelsey said Johnson wasn't as famous as some other entertainers such as Bill Cosby and Stevie Wonder. But, she said, "I thought she was interesting."

Others on their team included Matthew Kastigar, Johnny Nyugen, Elizabeth Tamaren, Darrell Lofton and Max MaGruder. All of them contributed an individual poem and then shared the job of getting all the material ready for the printer.

Ten-year-old Sabina Wahl did much of the writing for the book, "Rebirth in America." That was a story written in diary form about a make-believe family from Puerto Rico that came to America.

Ten-year-old Haley Millner did much of the illustration for the book. She said, "I found a picture of a Hispanic family in a book and modeled my illustrations after them." Another illustrator was classmate Danny Poon.

The team thought up names for the family. Then, the kids went to a website that suggested names that matched a person's personality. The kids then matched names to the way those family members acted in the book.

Ten-year-old Tim Burroughs was the production designer for the book. "I made sure it all went together perfectly," he said.

But, later, he admitted the production flow didn't actually go that smoothly. That's because some parts lagged behind the production schedule. Tim admitted, "Sabina and I had to do some of the coloring of illustrations because were running behind schedule."

But, he said team cooperation did get the book together on time. Other members of the team included Derrell Lofton as editor, Chris Gentsch as are director and Salena Davison as title page designer.

For a look at some of the writing and illustrations from the three books, click here.