Yorkville children and parents get first read on storywalk

YORKVILLE – Children and their parents were getting their first read on the new Yorkville Storywalk, a project designed to promote reading, exercise and community engagement.

They turned out in large numbers at Yorkville Junior Women’s Club Park in the Heartland Circle neighborhood on Sept. 27, as the Yorkville Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon-cutting event for the project.

“It’s an opportunity for the community to come together,” Yorkville Educational Foundation President Alicia Lingane said.

The YEF partnered with the city of Yorkville Parks and Recreation Department, Yorkville School District Y115, the Yorkville Public Library and the 100+ Women Who Care organization to create the storywalk.

The simple concept behind a storywalk is to display an illustrated children’s book, page-by-page, mounted on posts along a park pathway.

The Yorkville Storywalk is composed of 24 stations, spaced along the entire pathway that encompasses the circular park.

Each storyboard displays two pages from the project’s inaugural book, “Every Dog in the Neighborhood,” by Philip C. Stead and Matthew Cordell.

Lingane said that a different book is to be displayed on the storywalk every couple of months.

The book pages are mounted on panels supported by steel posts cemented into the ground.

The story boards are about three feet from the ground, placing them at eye-level for young readers.

To read the book, visitors walk about a third of a mile around the entire park, which also features a playground, a sledding hill and plenty of open space.

Yorkville School District Y115 Book Ambassador Steph McHugh worked with librarians at district elementary schools and the public library to select the book.

“She’s really trying to redesign reading for our students,” Yorkville School Board President Lynn Burks said of McHugh. “What we’re most proud of is that she had an idea and improved on it.”

Autumn Creek Elementary School Librarian Courtney Voogt said the book is perfect for youngsters in the kindergarten through fourth-grade range.

The book is about a boy and his grandmother who work to bring a dog park to their community.

“It talks a lot about community activism,” Voogt said.

The storywalk project cost about $6,500, Lingane said, with a $5,000 grant from 100+ Women Who Care covering the lion’s share.

“Our goal is to help non-profits in Kendall County,” said Joanne Liebold of the group.

Yorkville Public Library Youth Services Director Jennette Weiss prepared the book for display on the storywalk, dismantling the book and laminated the pages.

The book has a good message for children, Weiss said, with the main character showing determination and in the end being rewarded for his good work.

Yorkville schoolchildren recently had the opportunity to meet Cordell, the book’s illustrator, via a remote connection, showing the students how he draws pictures for publication.

As a result, many of the children who were taking their parents for a trip around the park had already read the book.

“We came because she’s been talking about it,” Rachel Goeden, parent of five-year-old Rose, a kindergartener at Bristol Bay Grade School.