By Ted Kleine

Reprinted from the Chicago Tribune Newspaper

September 27, 2000

Reading room gives kids some space to dream

Photo Captions: (left) Carly Rousso is a 1st grader at Indian Train School. Her mother, Gabrielle Rousso, designed the reading room.

(right) Judy Harrison reads to 1st graders in the Rory Deutsch Reading Room at Indian Trails School in Highland Park. The room's space theme is a tribute to Rory.

Rory Deutsch never made it to the stars, but his classmates at Indian Trail School feel like they've taken the trip he dreamed about.

Rory, a 1st grader who was passionate about "Star Wars," the planet Jupiter and everything else beyond the Earth's atmosphere, died of a brain stem tumor in 1998. This fall, his school honored him by building a reading room that comes right out of his science-fiction fantasies.

The Rory Deutsch Reading Room resembles the command deck of a spaceship. The walls are covered with oven knobs, switches, doorbells and fuses, meant to look like the doodads on a spaceship's control panel. The view outside the 'windows' is a mural of spiral galaxies, exploding nebulas and nine planets.

Gabrielle Rousso, who has a daughter, Carly, in 1st grade at the school and who designed the reading room, said she started planning by studying author Seymour Simon's series of space books. Rory was addicted to them. The model spaceship Rousso built may inspire other kids to become space fans.

"When the kids come in here they're in a space station," Rousso said. "They're actually looking out into space. It's a place for kids to imagine and dream."

The kids are fascinated by the celestial reading room. They spend as much time looking at the walls as they do listening to stories.

"When I walk in here, it sort of feels like I'm floating in space," 1st grader Jordan Fox said.

When 1st grader Bessie Kemp walks into the room, she thinks of aliens and UFOs.

"It reminds me of the movie 'E.T.,' when he was coming down, when he came in and scared the boy," Bessie said.

Matthew Birk, a 4th grader and a friend of Rory's who used to play "Star Wars" with him, imagines that Rory would have appreciated the reading room.

"I think he would have thought that it was very special and that one day he would hope that he would go on a spaceship," Matthew said.