FOR KIDS : Material for a Book : Artist-writer will show how to make and decorate volumes using recycled items.

Sarah Rosenberg is the ultimate pack rat. She saves rocks, twigs, leaves, feathers, bottle caps, buttons and especially brown paper bags. You name it, she keeps it.

Everything is a potential art object.

“It might sound crazy but things have always spoken to me. I was the kind of kid that talked to rocks,” said Rosenberg, 25. “There’s so much life in everything. What’s junk?”

Rosenberg’s flair for discovering significance in just about anything has led her down many strange alleyways as a trash picker, and ultimately as a children’s storybook creator.

Saturday at Glendale Central Library, Rosenberg will read from her collection of stories and offer a workshop for children, detailing how to create a picture book from recycled materials.

“I grew up without a television set,” said Rosenberg, who was reared in Massachusetts before moving to Los Angeles in 1987. “My world was reading and painting and creating. That’s when I first discovered the magic of the Earth.”

It wasn’t until Rosenberg left home for college, however, that she really learned about improvising for art’s sake.

“I was the typical starving student, trying to keep afloat as a cocktail waitress. But I still didn’t have enough money for the extras, like art supplies,” Rosenberg said.

Things changed one night after her shift ended when she stopped at a 7-Eleven on her way home. Rosenberg watched as the clerks broke up boxes and crates to be discarded.

“Something inside me clicked,” she said. “I took as many as I could carry and started painting on them that night. I kept going back to that trash bin night after night. It was a gold mine.”

Rosenberg also found that paper bags could be stitched together and bound like a book. She began decorating the covers with objects from her trash-collecting journeys and then writing child-like stories on the inside.

Her books have been displayed at small galleries and bookstores in Kansas City, Mo. Rosenberg has also given readings and workshops throughout Los Angeles, helping children explore and create story ideas, then use recycled objects for their illustrations.

“Her stories are simple yet versatile on many levels, like a good children’s book should be,” said Helena von Schreiber, program coordinator for the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, where Rosenberg recently held a workshop.

“We try to encourage lots of participation. Real hands-on developmental play,” Von Schreiber said. “Rosenberg’s books and her workshop really teach that an idea, a story can be created out of almost anything. And she works with recyclables so you can also talk about the environment.”

Sometimes the most magical stories originate from the children Rosenberg teaches.

“I had this one little 6-year-old who wanted to write a how-to cookbook,” Rosenberg said. “With quite a lot of care, her book detailed how to bake chocolate cookies, how to papier-mache and how to apply lipstick.

“Now that’s creativity.”

Where and When

What: Artist and author Sarah Rosenberg will read her stories and help children 3 and older create illustrated books in the Young People’s Room of the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St.

Hours: 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Price: Free.

Call: (818) 548-2035.