Katie Adams started taking art classes when she was 5 and has been studying since she was 8 with Paula Bradley through the Big Bear Valley Recreation and Parks District.  When she was 13, The Lighthouse Project asked Katie to illustrate a whimsical book about a garden in her former school, Big Bear Elementary. She finished painting 27 watercolors for the book and its cover shortly after turning 15. For the next year, Katie learned about layout and design and took charge of getting the garden book ready for the printer. The result is What Grows in a Garden?, the inspiring story of what students truly learned from transforming a bare courtyard into a thriving garden.

Prior to the book’s publication, Katie received recognition and several awards for her art. In the summer of 2007, she illustrated scenes from The Hidden Treasure of the Chisos by Patrick Dearen at the Wild West Storyfest, a weekly storytelling program for children at the Big Bear library. Her pastel drawings of the Western adventure were displayed and honored during the Cowboy Gathering at Big Bear’s Performing Arts Center that September. In 2008 she won the middle school division for a pastel drawing at Art on the Lake in Big Bear. Last year, she placed first in her division at the California State Fair for “Birds of Purgatory,” a watercolor of devilish flowers.

A sophomore at Big Bear High School, Katie, 16, is passionate about art and enjoys skiing, playing soccer and wearing purple sunglasses. What Grows in a Garden? is Katie’s first book.

The book, illustrated by Big Bear High School student Katie Adams, tells the whimsical story of what grade school children learned when they transformed a bare courtyard in their school into a flourishing garden. The story is based on the experience of Big Bear Elementary students, who created the first school garden in the valley. Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit school gardens in the Bear Valley Unified School District.

Community leaders Beth Gardner, Jean Sweet and Tim Wood were inspired to write the story after witnessing the astounding growth of the garden in its first year at Big Bear Elementary. Jean Sweet and a team of volunteers spearheaded the project in the spring of 2008, involving all the teachers and students in the school in the cultivation and harvest. As the garden grew, the students learned where the food on their plates comes from as well as the joy, beauty and peace that their hard work could produce.

When the story was written, Beth Gardner asked Katie Adams, then 13, to illustrate the book, and she worked on the project for more than two years. She painted 27 original watercolors for the book and its cover, solicited artwork from other Big Bear Elementary students, and chose photos to accompany the story.

Although Katie completed the artwork just after turning 15, the project wasn’t finished. No one on the team had published a book before. So Beth sought help from Big Bear residents Dave Talbot, senior graphic designer with the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, and Tim Wolcott, an award-winning landscape photographer who had just published his own book. Dave and Tim taught Katie to use Adobe InDesign, a professional layout software program. Over the next several months, Katie spent many afternoons and evenings at the Wolcott house designing and laying out the book on Tim’s computer. Tim also connected The Lighthouse Project to an environmentally friendly printer.

What Grows in a Garden? is truly a community effort that benefits Big Bear’s children. Proceeds from book sales will benefit school gardens at Big Bear Elementary, North Shore Elementary, Baldwin Lane Elementary, Big Bear High School and at Big Bear Middle School, which will start a garden this spring.