Schools and teams go together. There are scholastic athletic teams, decathlon teams, cheerleading teams, debate teams and…story writing teams?

When elementary school teacher Annie Delgado heard about the "Read Across America: Dr. Seuss-Style Story Writing Contest" last year, she organized her junior high literature classes at Our Lady of Lourdes in Northridge into teams to come up with several original story entries.

One of them, "Matthew and the Magic Door to Reading," written by six seventh-grade girls, was the Los Angeles County grand prize winner in the annual contest sponsored by the Time Warner Cable Company. Their winning story, among 191 national entries, was among three honored in Southern California.

Our Lady of Lourdes had the distinction of being the only regional Catholic school winner as well as the sole Los Angeles County winner since the other two winning schools are located in Orange County. Prizes included having the stories reenacted by a children's theater company, MYART, at a school assembly and a $50 book store gift certificate.

"I'm always looking for ways to get students interested in reading. I thought this activity would be an exciting group project," said Delgado. To prepare, the students read a lot of rhyming Dr. Seuss books. Then, over a two-week period, each student team created a story and illustrations for a bound book. In March, nationally celebrated as "Read Across America Month," OLL was notified that one of its seventh grade teams had won over several local school competitors.

On May 3, the six authors and the entire student body gathered in the parish auditorium for the performance of the prize-winning story. The humorous story, written in verse, portrayed the plight of a little boy who couldn't open the magic door because he didn't realize he had to read the posted instructions until a wacky, Dr. Seuss-esque character pointed them out.

Following the play, the authors appeared on the stage with the actors and answered questions from the audience about how they came up with the plot. The story writing process included much discussion about who would be responsible for the various tasks of writing, illustration and production.

"It was nice to work together as a team," co-author Stephanie Szanter told The Tidings. Her mother, among many of the authors' parents who attended the performance, commented, "The students got to showcase their talents, including rhyming, drawing and coloring." Parent Mary Reich added, "It helped my daughter to grow closer to her friends and appreciate school."

The proud parents posed for a group portrait in front of the student authors, including Colleen Lim, Katie Reich, Andrea Rosas, Stephanie Szanter, Isabelle Van Vleet and Riza Vitug.