The Huntsville Times & Grieving Children

The Huntsville Times
Huntsville, Alabama
Reprinted with Permission

Lee play brings book to life
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
By PAT NEWCOMB
Times Staff Writer pat.newcomb@htimes.com

Author praises students' performance of book about dealing with grief

Author John Adams sat on a step in Ron Harris' Huntsville backyard Monday night and watched his book, "The Dragonfly Door," come to life.

Adams, a children's book author from Minnesota, was brought to tears as he watched Lee High School theater students act out his book about dealing with loss and grief. The Lee students, in turn, hugged the author who helped them deal with the loss of four of their classmates in a bus crash Nov. 20.

In the book, two wingless dragonflies, Lea and Nym, live underwater in a marsh. One night, Lea doesn't come home, and Nym discovers her friend has died. In a vision or a dream, Nym gets a glimpse of what Lea has become, a beautiful golden dragonfly with wings.

In masks with bubble eyes, the Lee students acted out the story of Nym's sadness when she realizes Lea is gone, how the vision helps her feel better and how she learns to go on but never forget her friend.

Gaining his composure for a moment, Adams stood in front of the actors and a small audience in Harris' small backyard amphitheater and praised the performance.

"I could not have asked for anything better for this book," he said. "You will help so many people with this and that was the purpose" of the book.

Adams wrote "The Dragonfly Door" after reading about the Dragonfly project, a nonprofit organization started in 2001 by an 11-year-old Minnesota girl.

The organization sends a sympathy card to people who have lost loved ones and a copy of a story of a grub who transforms into a dragonfly and tries to show his friends why he has left them. The piece, by Walter Dudley Cavert, shares the message that there is no proof that people cease to exist after death.

The special premier of the theatrical adaptation of Adams' book began when Harris was searching for a way for Lee students to deal with the bus wreck. Harris, who is teaching part-time at Lee after retiring from full-time teaching, Googled "children and grief" and found the Web site for Adams' book. It looked like a perfect story to adapt to a play for Lee students to perform.

Vivienne Atkins, the director of the school's magnet programs, contacted Adams and his wife, Clea, who run Feather Rock Books, a company they formed to publish "The Dragonfly Door." The book was still at the presses, but the couple liked the idea of the project and gave permission for the adaptation. They also sent books for each of the actors in the Student Health Advocates Responsible for Peer Education project. Big Brothers/Big Sisters sponsors the SHARPE program and the students involved perform short plays with messages for other area school students. "The Dragonfly Door" will become one of the skits the students take to elementary schools, church groups and other organizations.

The group performed "The Dragonfly Door" last week for students in Lincoln Elementary School's after-school program, and the reaction was profound, said Harris. The children sat very still as they watched the play, and one child came up to Joshalyn Ragland, who played Lea and hugged her tightly after the play.

The players first read the book in January, and they all cried as they read the hopeful message at the end, said Tiffany Donaldson, who played Nym.

"We figured if it did that to us, it would help others, too," said Tiffany, a Lee junior.

For Nicole Bounds, who was a minnow in the play, the book had meaning beyond helping her face the loss of her fellow high school students. Her father died when she was 7.

After the play, Nicole, a freshman, thanked Clea Adams for the book.

"I'm so glad somebody took the initiative to do this," said Nicole. "I wish I could have had this when I was 7."