In college, the idea of buying textbooks automatically invokes a cringe -- but there was a time when books meant pictures, talking creatures and short sentences.

This Sunday at 2 p.m., the Omaha Theatre Company will perform If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a children's book by Laura Numeroff, at the Eisenhower Auditorium.

"It's the first event in the wide-eyed wonder series, which is geared for preschool and early elementary school children," Laura Sullivan, marketing manager for the Center for the Performing Arts, said.

Sullivan said the Center for the Performing Arts is putting on this series for elementary school children because these shows are the same as the books that they are reading in class.

" Stage versions of story books have done well," Sullivan said.

Amy Vashaw, director if audience and program development for the Center for the Performing Arts, said there will also be a private performance on Monday for local elementary and preschools.

"Sixteen-hundred children from schools all over the area will be at the 10 a.m. performance," Vashaw said. "We call it an 'informance,' which stems from informative performance."

Vashaw said this is an opportunity for teachers to use arts as a living laboratory.

The Omaha Theatre Company, which is exclusively a children's theater, has been to Penn State before and tour director Carla Podraca said the Give a Mouse a Cookie show was first presented in Omaha last spring.

"We got great responses here at home and we were very happy," Podraca said.

The Omaha Theater Company has performed the show in 14 other venues across the country.

"We have had good responses from these other venues as well," Podraca said.

Vashaw said the Center for the Performing Arts puts on children's shows four to eight times a year.

"We have had overwhelming positive response from teachers, and we are going to keep on doing what we're doing," Vashaw said.

Tickets for the public show are $15 for adults and $10 for students and children.