Elementary school offers a world of books

ST. LOUIS-- Oak Hill Elementary School has students from around the globe: Bosnia, Africa, the Middle East.

Now Bosnian native Alma Petric is trying to build an international library to match the school's student body.

Two afternoons a week, the school opens its library doors to the public, offering readers more than 200 books in Bosnian and a handful of titles in Russian and German.

In an office off the library's main floor, you can find books like "Crvenkapica," the Bosnian version of the story about a little girl in a red cape and her battle of wits with a devious wolf. The collection ranges from picture-based books for beginning readers to "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse in the original German.

Petric founded the library more than a year ago at Long Middle School then moved the books to Oak Hill earlier this year. More than a third of Oak Hill's 300 students are Bosnian. Nearly two-thirds are foreign-born -- a situation the school has embraced with a bulletin board that welcomes visitors in six languages and international flags hung from the ceiling in its main hallway.

Petric works for the district as a bilingual specialist, providing interpretive services and orientations to families new to this country as they enroll their students in St. Louis Public Schools.

But Petric's work at the international library is strictly volunteer, a labor of love for a woman who used to teach German in Bosnia. She would like to add books in other languages, particularly Spanish.

"Science actually says that the better kids read in their language of origin, the foreign language comes easier," Petric said. "It's easier to connect everything if you have the grammatical base."

A few students gather in the library after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get help from Petric in reading and writing Bosnian, to play games and to check out the books.

Safija Avdic, 12, and her younger sister, Sefika, 9, come to the library regularly for lessons. Both girls grew up speaking Bosnian. But their family immigrated to the United States before Sefika entered school, so the younger girl is still learning how to read the words she already speaks.

Safija, who attended school in Bosnia for a few years, already reads Bosnian fluidly. Her family encourages her to attend Petric's lessons to keep her reading skills sharp.

"They don't want me to forget Bosnian, so when I get back to Bosnia, I can get a better job," she said.