Diane Phelps, author of “Needle in a Haystack,” told Kelly Cadigan’s fourth-grade class at West Sedona School on Tuesday, March 10, that if they have a dream, they can make it happen.

Her book, which the class read in the first week of March, follows Clyde Tombaugh [Feb.4, 1906–Jan. 17, 1997], an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff who discovered Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930. He got interested in astronomy as a boy.

“That was his dream from the time he was in fourth grade,” she said. “That is the north star he followed his whole life.”

While Cadigan’s class had a few aspiring astronomers, the students aspired to be myriad things.

“I want to be a scientist,” 10-year-old Beau Payne said, “but I also want to be a part-time bladesmith.”

He said his dad has started to make knives for the past few years and he’s gotten interested because of him.

Phelps has published five books, the majority of which are historical nonfiction. She said she thought this story of Tombaugh finding Pluto would be a great one for kids.

“I just really liked that there was a heart shape in there,” 9-year-old Jenicka Villagrana said, referring to the 990-mile-wide heart-shaped region on Pluto that the New Horizons probe photographed in 2015 during its flyby, which Phelps talked about.

Cadigan said the passion Phelps has for her interests can be really inspiring for her students to follow whatever interests them.

Children often care a lot about things adults don’t think about, Phelps said, but many will go on to make their dreams reality.

“He decided in fourth grade, and he made it happen,” Phelps said. “A lot of us have dreams in fourth grade.”

“I want to be a singer, a designer and an artist,” Villagrana said.

Phelps is part of the Artist in the Classroom program organized by Sedona Arts and Culture Specialist Nancy Lattanzi. Phelps often works with adults as a public speaker, she said, and will often give talks about her research topics.

“I go give raven talks, because people in Sedona like ravens,” she said.

Lattanzi said the program has been ongoing for years, began at her position with the city a few years ago, but was very excited to hear about it.

Having artists in the classroom is a great way to connect with students differently and get them excited to learn.

Jan Marc Quisumbing, aka “The Janimal,” came to Cadigan’s class in December to teach the students all about cartooning and storytelling.

“I want them exposed to as much as they can be, so they know that they have the whole world at their fingertips,” Cadigan said.

Cadigan said Phelps showed a different aspect of story telling and writing that worked well with the science standards and writing curriculums.

“She worked on idioms and different writing [last week],” Cadigan said. “Which was really fun, because the kids got into writing idioms and figuring out that it’s not really raining cats and dogs, and then using that in their writing and how to change how we speak into more formal writing.”