What Is Storywalk®?
StoryWalk® is a fun and innovative way for people of all ages to exercise their bodies, as well as their minds. Take a leisurely stroll on a path and read a story while getting some fresh air! Findlay's original StoryWalk® is located in beautiful Riverside Park. The path leads you clockwise under a canopy of tall trees starting at the bandshell as the story continues through the park and ends at the Waterfalls Pavilion. The second StoryWalk® was installed in 2021 at the Benton Ridge Park, and the third in 2022 at the Findlay City Schools Preschool. The StoryWalk® at the Findlay City Schools Preschool was made possible by a grant from the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), awarded by the State Library of Ohio.
A special thank you to the Hancock County Park District and the City of Findlay for installing StoryWalk® at Riverside Park, and to Veer Mehta for coordinating and completing the installation of the Findlay City Schools Preschool StoryWalk® as his Eagle Scout project.
StoryWalk® was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont, and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition and the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. For more information, please call us at 419-422-1712.
Please share photos of your wonderful trips to our StoryWalk® locations with us at facebook.com/fhcpl.
Book For October at Riverside Park, Findlay
Silver Linings
by Fiona Woodcock
Pip and Parker live next door to each other and are such good friends that sometimes they don’t even need words to communicate. If something goes wrong, Parker (who always looks on the bright side) helps Pip see the silver lining.
When the clouds roll in, Pip sees a day spoiled by rain, but Parker sees a chance to play a fun cloud guessing game! When Pip accidently drops her sweet strawberry snack into her lemonade, she’s certain disaster has struck. But Parker finds a reason to celebrate their unexpected pink lemonade! But what will happen when Parker makes a mistake and feels blue? Can Pip cheer him up and show him the silver lining?
Book For October at Findlay City Schools Preschool
El Cucuy is Scared, Too!
by Donna Barba Higuera
Ramón is a little boy who can’t sleep. He is nervous for his first day at a new school. El Cucuy is the monster who lives in Ramón’s cactus pot. He can’t sleep, either. It turns out that El Cucuy is scared, too!
This gentle, perceptive story explores the worries that can accompany moving to a new place and beginning a new journey—and reveals how comfort, bravery, and strength can be found through even the most unexpected of friendships.
Book For October at Benton Ridge Park
The Shape of You
by Mượn Thị Văn
In lyrical language, a mother tells her small daughter about the shapes that make up their lives. At first, the shapes are literal. The shape of their door is a rectangle, their table, a square. Water can be shaped like a cube or a cloud. And then she moves on to the figurative. The shape of learning is a question. The shape of warmth is a space waiting to be filled. Some shapes change, like a child growing up, while some remain the same, like the triangle of the mountain behind their house. The shape of her heart, she concludes, “will always be you.”
Bestselling and award-winning author Mượn Thị Văn has written an innovative, poetic and philosophical exploration of shapes and the many forms they can take, touching on objects, families and love. The meditative and heartwarming text is beautifully complemented by Miki Sato’s layered, multitextured and three-dimensional-looking illustrations created from different papers and fabrics. A soothing read-aloud, this picture book has the feel of a classic and promotes observation, curiosity, interpretation and discussion. It’s an excellent choice for exploring critical thinking, shapes and measurements with young children.