Let’s say you’re surfing Amazon.com this summer and you happen across a children’s book written and illustrated by three employees of the Washoe County School District. Think you’re imagining things?

Think again.

Sparks teacher Diane Domiteaux, Reno principal Karen Wallis and Sparks school secretary Lea Saling are on the brink of debuting their first book, “Washoe Seasons of Life: A Native American Story,” and it hits bookstores in July.

The 38-page book chronicles a year in the life of a fictional Washoe girl named Mele, living on the shores of Lake Tahoe before the arrival of European settlers. Domiteaux and Wallis hatched the idea for the book in Fall 1999 while both were teaching at Agnes Risley Elementary School in Sparks. They say they couldn’t find a picture book to help them teach Nevada history to fourth-graders.

“We were just frustrated because there is no children’s literature about Nevada,” said Domiteaux, who teaches today at Van Gorder Elementary. “There is an endless supply of picture books about U.S. history, (and) you can find many things about the Washoe, but they’re all written for adults.”

So the two took it upon themselves to fill the void, capturing the lives of early Nevadans in a child-friendly format. As Mele gathers pine nuts with her tribe, helps stage a rabbit drive and listens to her grandfather’s stories, the authors hope readers ages 7 to 11 will learn about Washoe culture and improve their literacy skills.

The book took them four years to complete, not only because they subjected the manuscript to multiple revisions, but also because their lives as teachers and mothers kept intervening.

“We’d all get really sidetracked by life and weddings and houses and soccer, ” said Domiteaux, a mother of two boys. “There would be times when we would go months without doing anything (on the book) and then we’d say, ‘We need to do something.’”

They also needed an illustrator, but that problem solved itself one day when Wallis noticed an art object on the desk of Risley secretary Lea Saling.

“There was this skull on Lea’s desk with this beautiful landscape,” said Wallis, principal of Mount Rose Elementary.

When Wallis found out Saling did the landscape herself, she asked her to paint Emerald Bay for the cover of their book. She still remembers the day she saw it for the first time.

“She holds up this painting of Emerald Bay, and it was like you could step into it,” Wallis said.

Saling ended up painting a total of 16 scenes for the book, including a pinenut gathering scene, a rabbit catching scene, and scenes around a campfire. Saling said she used historical books and displays at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City as models for her scenes.

“It was a lot of work,” Saling said of the 16 canvases, which she worked on over four years. “(But) being a native of the area, and doing something about the Washoe Indians, I’m just honored.”

The Washoe language got a starring role in the story as well, with words from the narrative translated into Washoe at the bottom of each page. A glossary and pronunciation key were added to the book with the help of Washoe language expert and University of Nevada, Reno, professor emeritus William H. Jacobsen, Jr..

Wallis said the trio planned to self-publish their work, but discovered multiple pitfalls and obstacles along that route. Luckily, Beagle Bay Books, an independent publisher in Reno, believed they’d found a unique niche.

“Everybody wants to do a children’s book, that’s fun. But beyond being a children’s book, they wanted to market it to teachers as a teaching device,” said Jacqueline Simonds, president of Beagle Bay. “What I found particularly interesting was that they had in mind a marketing plan.”

Wallis said she is just happy the book is finished.

“For me, the real accomplishment is that we stayed with it, even though it took so long,” she said. “We truly wanted to honor the Washoe people.”

Domiteaux said they are considering writing companion books on the Paiute and Shoshone, but not until they see how the first book sells.

Currently, 5,000 copies of the book are being printed in Hong Kong, and autographed advance copies will be available to educators starting April 26 at a discounted price.

The public can find the book in bookstores or at Amazon.com starting July, for $19.95 plus tax.