The seventh-grade students in Julie Frink's Bessemer Academy reading class had to incorporate a project into their reading of "Homer's Odysseus and the Tale of Troy," a children's version of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

It didn't take much discussion to come up with the most obvious construction project: the Trojan Horse.

Big enough for three of Frink's smallest boys to hide inside, the horse will move soon to the school library and later this month it will be transported to the city's Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library and be on display for three weeks.

It took the class of 11 of Bessemer's top seventh-grade readers about a month to design and construct the horse, nicknamed "Candy" by the class.

Working during lunch period and after school, they fitted large cardboard boxes over a pair of portable bookshelves. The body of the horse lies across them with space in the head and rump, and a cabin on its back for the "Greeks" to hide.

The body and head portion are separate and can be lifted off. Frink said that the children were careful to keep the horse no wider than 33 inches so it will fit through the door in their classroom, located in Bessemer's new addition.

The head is made of crumpled newspaper pages held together with duct tape and then wrapped in papier-mache. Frink said that it looked a lot like a camel until one of the youngsters thought to wrap a piece of tape on the underside of the head and shape the distinctive jaw of a horse. Pueblo Color Center, she said, donated the brown paint that covered the entire project.

The class is well past the fall of Troy and this week students are reading about Odysseus' preparations to slay Penelope's suitors and reclaim his home.

"It's addicting," said Henry Castellanos of the story.

"Once you start reading, you don't want to stop," added Ryan Marquez.

Frink has put a series of photographs on the Web site she uses to tout her students' work.

Their next reading assignment will focus on the Middle Ages.