FOR Dale Butler, Once Upon A Time, the Bermuda National Gallery's new exhibit illustrating the role of art in children's story books and how it helps to promote literacy, strikes a special chord - and not just because his is one of the featured works.

As a former educator and one of the island's leading authors, the MP praised the exhibit for the positive message it would send to children across the island - that literacy begins at home.

"What they're trying to highlight is something that I've been pushing for the last ten years," he said. "Literacy starts with the use of one's own environment. Yes, we have to have international works, but you must also have your own so that we have something to compare it with.

"It's all right to look at Little Red Riding Hood but you should also look at Professor Vincent, Bermuda's version of Little Red Riding Hood.

"I was the first person in Bermuda to say that we have a literacy problem and I was condemned for it by the Government of the day. I said that there were two main factors - children weren't reading about themselves, and the words on the pages were too close. All the children could see was a line of letters."

The exhibit, which opens on Monday, was "designed to give visitors a greater appreciation of artistic styles, the illustrative process and illustration as fine art, while promoting literacy and providing an important educational resource", said gallery director Laura Gorham.

"Studies show that children who have trouble reading at age six will have trouble reading throughout their lives. A challenge teachers and parents face is making reading fun. This exhibit has been designed to make reading a more active pastime; one that inspires imagination and encourages introspection.

"We also want people to have a greater appreciation of the artwork and understand how illustration is a unique, visual element that has to work with text to tell a complete story."

Involved in the unique collaboration between the gallery, the Bermuda National Library Youth Division, the Bermuda College and the Bermuda Department of Education & Development, are original illustrations by award-winning Bermudian and international artists, all of whom were selected because of their appeal to young readers.

The five local illustrators involved are Sharon Wilson (The Day GoGo Went to Vote), Patricia DeCosta (Sidney the Sailboat), Helen Daniel (The Bermuda Cedar Tree), Catherine Draycott (Nothin' But a Pond Dog) and Angela Ming Bean who illustrated Mr. Butler's book, It Takes a Shining Raindrop.

"It Takes a Shining Raindrop was something I wrote during a (writing course) I was taking at Columbia University in 1995," said Mr. Butler. "I had a divine inspiration while walking in New York one day. A raindrop kept following me. And it went on for three blocks. There was no rain around. It was a sunny day and I was walking in the middle of the sidewalk."

Mr. Butler said he wrote the story - the tale of a raindrop illustrated with well-known Bermudian figures and scenery - that night, and when he read it before the group, they rewarded his efforts with a standing ovation.

Although a few of the big houses offered to publish the book for him, Mr. Butler said he was too impatient to wait the three years they said it would take before he would see it in print. Instead, he opted to publish it himself, in Hong Kong in 1996. The book has since been enacted on stage by two local primary schools.

"It's the only book I've ever seen where a child will read it one night and demand it for the rest of the week. It has a religious flavour to it but it has been widely received by all groups. I believe it's led to an increase in reading. I commend (the organisers of the exhibit) for the vision they had.

"I'd always predicted that (It takes a Shining Raindrop) would become part of somebody's gallery. In most parts of the United States, it would've been put into a cartoon by now."

Once Upon A Time opens on Monday at the National Gallery and runs through January 18. To enable as many children and families to visit as possible, the gallery will extend its opening hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. It will also open between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 6 and 20 and November 3 and 17.