Harry Potter, move over. There are some new books on the shelves at the Children’s Center.

   Thanks to teens from the Preuss School, pre-schoolers at St. Vincent’s Children’s Center spent a day last fall creating their very own picture books.

   The Preuss School (rhymes with voice), located on the University of California at San Diego campus, is a middle and high school, grades 6-12, chartered under the San Diego Unified School District. The school was founded by UCSD in 1998 as an intensive college preparatory educational program for low-income students motivated to attend college.

   Preuss teacher Francois Bereaud described the visit to the Children’s Center as part of a "service-learning" course. The 19 teens each brought along blank notebooks they had made for the children. "We planned it so there would be one student for every child," Bereaud said.

   Children took to the books with gusto. Encouraged by the teens, some drew houses and faces, while others ventured into "abstract" art.

   "This gives the children freedom of expression and allows them to work on their cognitive skills," said St. Vincent’s Child Care Specialist Annie Croft.

   The Preuss students also brought brightly colored paints and large white sheets of paper for the toddlers to decorate with handprints. Ninth-grader Julian Vidal helped supervise the messy, but gleeful effort.

   "It makes me feel good [to come here]," he said. Vidal also helps serve breakfast at the Village on Sundays.

   Following the picture drawing, students took Polaroid photos of themselves with the pre-schoolers to be placed in the children’s notebooks. They also performed a short play written by the students based on the story of Snow White.

   The children were not the only ones to benefit by the occasion. "Although the teens can be rowdy in their own classrooms," Bereaud said,"having the responsibility of working with the children helped them to rise to the occasion."

   Vidal's father, Robert, who accompanied the Preuss students, also feels the teens gained something from the event. "It's good for them to see that not everybody has everything."