MOUNT VERNON — Celebrating Knox County’s bicentennial, and in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Mount Vernon News’ Newspaper in Education program, Michelle Hartman wrote a fictional chapter story called “History Thief.” A class on a field trip discovers that a painting is missing from the library, and follows clues to find out the identity of the perpetrator and to recover the painting.
Pleasant Street Elementary fourth-grade students and their teacher, Jim Thayer, served as the inspiration for the characters in the mystery. He said the students have been very excited about posing for the pictures, and he has been very impressed by their maturity during the process.
“We’ve got quite the little actors/models,” Thayer said.
Those models so far include Justin Davis, Chastin Peppers, Will Cater, Alicia Swinsinski, Lauren Burke and Mikayla Bragg.