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Photo courtesy of Hoover Public Library.
Guests walk through Aldridge Gardens as they stop to read pages of “Baby Bear Counts One” by Ashley Worff with their children as part of the garden’s Storywalk experience that opened in November.
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The Hoover Public Library and Aldridge Gardens have partnered together to offer a new experience at Aldridge that is designed to help children both enhance reading skills and get exercise.
The experience, called a Storywalk, allows children to read portions of a book as they walk through Aldridge Gardens. Each page of the book is enlarged and placed in a glass case for children to read, with the pages spread out over certain distances as children walk and experience nature.
The Storywalk opened in November, and a new book will be selected each quarter to be featured in the glass cases.
“We saw a need to provide more unique outdoor activities,” said Lindsay Crawford, a children’s specialist at the Hoover Public Library. “In 2020, when the pandemic hit, I think we all realized how valuable having outdoor space is and fun activities, especially for kids who have been cooped up in their house.”
The Storywalk Project was created by librarian Anne Ferguson in Montpelier, Vermont, and was developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Vermont.
Crawford said what makes the Storywalk unique is the stories that the library selects are interactive to children. A recent book selected, “Baby Bear Counts,” was designed to help children recognize different animals and the different seasons.
“We try to pick really good book titles that are enriching and developmentally appropriate for kids,” Crawford said. “They really are getting a literary experience along with taking a walk.”
Crawford said the Hoover Public Library already was partnering with Aldridge Gardens with the library’s storytime, and the Storywalk Project is a natural continuation of that partnership.
Aldridge Gardens is the perfect location for the Storywalk because of how close it is to the library, the ease of advertising that location and the cooperation of the staff at the gardens, she said.
Tynette Lynch, the director of hospitality, tourism and events for the city and CEO of Aldridge Gardens, said her staff was thrilled with the idea of having a Storywalk.
“We’re always trying to do events and add to the gardens to get young people into the gardens,” Lynch said. “It helps to promote the gardens, and anything that we can have that’s interactive, we love to have.”
Lynch said she visited a Storywalk at Overton Park in Mountain Brook along with her
staff to understand what a Storywalk might look like.
Mountain Brook was the first city in the greater Birmingham area to have a Storywalk. In 2019, the O’Neal Library collaborated with Mountain Brook’s Parks and Recreation Department to install one in Overton Park.
After the project was approved in Hoover, Lynch said it took around two weeks for the Storywalk to be installed at Aldridge.
“We do hope to eventually have another one somewhere else in Hoover, on a different side of town,” Crawford said. “This is just a starting point.”