Nine McKelvie Middle School students had a first-hand glimpse of book binding at Nashua High School North.

“It’s really efficient until they have to put all the pages in order,” said eighth-grader Daniel Kassler.

Much of the process uses machines, but the pages have to be put in order by hand, he said.

On Tuesday, April 17, the high school’s graphic arts teacher Jay Zacconi showed the students through the computer lab, where student-designed pages are scanned into the computer, on to the pre-press room and, finally, into the printing lab – where the McKelvie Mirror, an annual literary magazine, will be bound.

McKelvie behavior specialist Carrie DeBell runs the magazine, which will be 144 pages this year.

The tour was interesting, but it’s really the end of the process, Kassler said.

“Well, at the very beginning, some McKelvie student writes something that they want to have immortalized forever on the page,” Kassler said.

One of those students is eighth-grader Daniel O’Brien, who submitted an original story in October.

Seventh-grader Amy D’Amato drew an undersea scene that can be colored in.

“I drew it for the kids because we’ll be donating some of the books to the Dartmouth- Hitchcock Children’s Hospital,” D’Amato said.

Seventh-grader Samantha Beaupre, who is in her second year working on the magazine, said the printing process is interesting.

She said the Mirror’s cover this year will be a student’s watercolor painting.

Sixth-grader Max Gagnon said he got involved with the magazine because he’s interested in drawing.

“They said I’m a good artist.

I like to draw and they said it was good enough for the magazine,” he said.

What did he draw?

“It was a type of robot-like thing,” he said.

It’s seventh-grader Lee Mohnkern’s second year at working at the Mirror.

“My friend told me about it. She told me that it would be cool,” he said.

Some of his stories were printed last year, but this year he submitted less.

“I had a really, really long adventure story that I was going to give to them, but was too long for the Mirror,” he said.

For Mohnkern, the best part about working at the magazine is getting to know the other students.

“It’s pretty cool to be involved with the process. A lot of the time, it’s just being with the other people in the group,” he said.