I dedicate this book to Mrs. Mattson, who taught me how to make pictures come alive.

One sunny morning in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, the sky is just waking up to its mango colors. A Snow Leopard yawns and stretches in the morning dew. The trees sway in the spring breeze as she strides quickly along, trying to track prey. Birds twitter in the sky.

As Snow Leopard climbs higher and higher into the snowy mountains to look for prey, she hears a faint noise in a nearby tree. She alertly sits down to look around for a clue. A wolf watches every movement she takes. He’s ready to pounce. While Wolf stalks her, the sun gleams in the bubbly blue sky. The birds circle above, taunting Snow Leopard and Wolf.

POUNCE! Wolf leaps out from behind a tree as Snow Leopard rockets through the snow. They run and they run, Wolf chasing Snow Leopard. Wolf starts to get very tired. Snow Leopard uses the pads on the bottom of her paws to speed through the snow. Suddenly Wolf comes to a complete halt, too tired to move.

As stars twinkle in the night sky, Snow Leopard climbs alone to the top of the snowy mountain. She has outrun the wolf. After a long day’s work, Snow Leopard settles down to get ready for another adventure tomorrow.

About the Author

Honor Petrie is a 9 year-old girl in Mrs. Mattson’s 3rd grade class. Honor loves sports and reading Harry Potter. She lives with her mom, dad, brother and sister, and 2 cats and a dog. Honor also loves her best friends, Joanna and Lucy. Honor loves animals. When she’s older she wants to work with dogs and cats. The Chase was Honor’s second book.

This is one of the many books that came to life while students in Mrs.

Mattson’s 3rd grade class explored the rich relationship between visual imagery

and the written word. This book was created as a part of Image-Making

Within the Writing Process, a dynamic art-and-literature-based approach to

writing developed by Beth Olshansky at the University of New Hampshire.

Image-Making uses hand-painted textured papers as the raw materials for

creating collage stories and poetry. Unlike a more traditional writing process,

within Image-Making the pictures always come first. This offers students with

diverse learning styles essential visual and kinesthetic tools for rehearsing,

drafting, and revising their ideas long before setting pencil to paper. Image-

Making was validated by the US Department of Education as an “innovative

and effective literacy program” in 1993. Today children around the world use

this process to create books in many languages.

Spring, 2010