Beginning a New Chapter : Field Trip to Skylight Bookstore by Loz Feliz Elementary School Students Introduces Them to a Neighborhood Resource and to a World of Fun and Stories

Of the 50 elementary school students who went on a recent field trip to the Skylight Bookstore in Los Feliz Village, 49 sat enthralled on the floor as former actress Enid Kent Sperber read a story about a dog with horrible breath.

But, the 50th, David Tevanyan, 10, was bored.

He fidgeted with his tennis shoes. He shuffled a book marker and a postcard. While other students laughed or listened to the story with their mouths open in wonder, David stared down at the floor.

Then something about the story got to him. The dog’s owners, desperately seeking to cure his bad breath, took the dog to a mountain “with a breathtaking view.” David looked up and started to laugh as his imagination drew him into the story.

By the time the dog’s owners took the animal to see the movie “Breath of a Salesman,” David’s boredom had been shattered.

That reaction was just what the organizers of the field trip had hoped for--igniting the interest of youngsters not used to books.

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The students, from Los Feliz Elementary School, walked the few blocks from campus to the bookstore on Vermont Avenue, just north of Hollywood Boulevard, on Tuesday. The class is an ethnic map of Los Angeles, with immigrants from Bangladesh, Guatemala, Mexico, the Philippines, El Salvador and Armenia.

For some, it was their first trip to a bookstore.

“This is interesting,” said Karine Arazmanyan, 10. “I didn’t know you could buy books. This place can make you smarter.”

The trip was a joint project between the school and the bookstore.

“It is good for the students to learn what resources are in their neighborhood,” said teacher Linda Sugimoto.

Skylight Bookstore opened in November on the site of the old and beloved Chatterton’s, which closed in 1994 after the death of its owner. The loss of Chatterton’s left a void, and the neighborhood hungered for a bookstore since the closest one was several miles away.

Though small compared to the giant chains, business is good at Skylight. It has attracted a loyal clientele eager to shop at what is becoming a rarity in the city: an independent bookstore.

The owners donate a percentage of sales to the Los Feliz Elementary School, and Skylight prominently features local writers. A large section of the store is devoted to books about Los Angeles, particularly the Los Feliz, Hollywood and Silver Lake areas.

“It is good for the kids and it is good for me because I can get from the source what we need for them,” said Skylight’s general manager, Kerry Slattery, who has donated dozens of books to the school. “This is their place.”

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After the story about the dog with bad breath (which, by the way, ends when his rotten breath knocks out two burglars), Sperber, now a librarian at Temple Beth Israel, read a second book about a snake. Then the kids were free to wander through the bookstore.

Their reviews were all raves.

“This is fantastic,” said Irma Stepanyan as she thumbed through “Charlotte’s Web.”

“This is cool,” said Wilson Chyon as he browsed the store’s fiction section.

But the trip to the bookstore was planned as a way of coupling learning with the youngsters’ fun. The students are about to go on a break from their year-round school schedule, and during the weeks they are off, Levy wants her classes to prepare at least three book reports.

On Tuesday’s field trip, students lined up to buy postcards, magazines, book markers and some paperback books.

As Blayze Baker-Johnson waited in line to buy an issue of Sports Illustrated, he commented: “If I feel like reading something different, now I know I can come here.”