When Rita Martinez’s second grade class at PS 291 decided to perform a dramatization of the children’s book “Something Beautiful,” they were unaware that they were actually delving into the history of their own school.

After they began preparing for the production, about an African-American girl on a quest to find beautiful things in her neighborhood, the school’s librarian, Amy Raiss, noticed that a decade ago the book’s author, Sharon Dennis Wyeth, had actually dedicated the book to PS 291.

Wyeth came to PS 291 as a volunteer for four visits in the early 1990s to discuss her writing process with a fourth grade class. When she realized that many of the students she was meeting were from neighborhoods similar to the one she grew up in, in southeast Washington, D.C., Wyeth decided to share her book, which at the time was a work in progress, with the fourth grade class. She wanted to see how young people with backgrounds similar to her own, and to that of the main character in “Something Beautiful,” reacted to her story. She wanted her story “to be real, yet respectful and above all empowering,” she said.

Raiss, excited by the connection between the school and the author,  invited Wyeth to attend the show, and Wyeth was more than happy to oblige. The author was the honored guest on Feb. 8 when the second grade class performed their adaptation of her tale.