This children's book is unlikely in every way, coming as it did from a dream, coming from an 85-year-old retired nurse/educator and an artist more than six decades her junior.

Yet "The Girl With Green Bean Hair," a self-published book by "Dr. Nan," works. Just ask my fifth- and sixth-grade daughters, both of whom said I should write about this tale that begins:

Kay was born and lived in the USA

Throughout the years she grew old and gray.

Rachel J. Poole invited me Monday morning into the Crawford Square townhouse she shares with her older daughter, Tenanche Golden, an art teacher at the city's Creative and Performing Arts High School. They also have this big ol', lazy tomcat, Miss Kitty. (Yes, Miss Kitty is male and knows it, but that story will have to wait for another book.)

As Dr. Poole began telling me how she was inspired to write this book, I looked over her shoulder to see a decorative throw pillow inscribed, "Seen it all . . . Done it all . . . Just can't remember it all." Yet there seems little that Dr. Poole has forgotten.

She can tell you how, as a girl not yet 9 years old, she watched her mother, "the most wonderful person who ever lived on Earth," die from cancer. She swore then that she'd become a nurse "so I will know what to do at that bedside."

She grew up to give the commencement address as co-valedictorian at Westinghouse High in 1942, and in 1943 she was among the first three black women admitted into the University of Pittsburgh's nursing program.

In 1951, she'd marry Marion L. Poole (a teacher and administrator who died almost 10 years ago at 79), and both would be active in the desegregation movement. As part of an integrated group that tried to enter a Wheeling, W.Va., restaurant in the 1950s, she left only after a gun was put to her head. She'd become the first African-American to be a director of nursing in Western Pennsylvania, holding that position at Western Psychiatric from 1964 to 1974, and she'd go on to receive more honors in academia.

No past troubles are in her whimsical little book, and it's wonderfully illustrated by Julianne Sota, 21, a graduate of CAPA now studying at the University of the Arts in London, England.

That's all the result of a dream Dr. Poole had in 2007.

"I have never, never in my whole lifetime, had a dream like that -- and I dream every night."

One morning Kay arose from bed in the month of May

She was surprised that she was young and able to play

And the hurt in her legs had all gone away

This transformation came with a catch: Kay's hair had turned to green beans. But Kay didn't mind once she got outside. All manner of animals came, animals that usually don't get along, and feasted as she fed them beans.

When she picked one green bean another grew back

"My hair can feed children when food they do lack."

Kay travels the city, the country and finally the world at the behest of the president, getting "high fives" as she feeds hungry children across the globe, refusing payment each step of the way.

It was natural for Dr. Poole to dream this way.

"I love children and animals -- don't be offended, you're not either," she told me.

The unnatural part was the poetry -- not one of her skills -- yet her story was written in a day.

Her grandchildren, Ernest and Aisha Sharif, the children of daughter Adriene Dilworth and now adults themselves, convinced their "Nan" she had a book, and old friends and colleagues agreed. She got a couple of rejections from publishers and told herself, "I'm old; I can't wait for these people."

So she decided to publish herself. Her daughter led Ms. Sota to her.

"Sometimes she acts older than I do," Dr. Poole said of Ms. Sota. "We had a good time."

Dr. Poole printed only 50 copies to start, and those sold, so she ordered a second printing. The hardback copy is $20.99 and paperback is $14.99. She's only now contacting bookstores, but hopes to have signings in libraries and wherever else. She'll be in the lobby of the Giant Eagle at 9001 Frankstown Road from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 6.