On Saturday afternoon, a small crowd of friends and interested onlookers joined members of the Sapulpa Parks Department, the Sapulpa Public Library, and the local TSET Healthy Living Program Serving Creek County to introduce the official grand opening of the Kelly Lane Park Story Trail, a new feature of Kelly Lane Park.
The Story Trail is a series of podiums, each with one page of a children’s book, along one of the main walking paths in Kelly Lane Park. They begin at the trail intersection near the playground, and to read the entire story, visitors must walk the whole trail.
According to Sapulpa Parks’ Susan Bencke, the trail is the first of its kind in the Tulsa Metro area. The next nearest one is in Claremore. You can see a map of all of Oklahoma’s Story Walks on the state website.
Melodie Reader, of the Sapulpa Library, said the initial planning for the project began a few years ago, when she was taking a class that required conducting research and viability of a project like the Story Trail. Unbeknownst to Reader, Sapulpa Parks’ Bencke and TSET coordinator Lisa Prescott had already been dreaming up this sort of project for awhile. When Reader took the idea to the Sapulpa Library Director Kristin Haddock, she found that Haddock had already done her own research as well. The timing of the four participants couldn’t have been better; they got to work and were able to put a plan together and securing the funding in less than 10 months.
For the grand opening, the book was “How Do You Wokka-Wokka?” by Elizabeth Bluemle and Illustrated by Randy Cecil. The book uses a combination of nonsense words and movement-inspired language to encourage the reader to have fun and move around—quite appropriate for the environment the book sits in.
Throughout the book, questions encourage readers to think deeper about the book, move along with the characters, and reflect on what they’ve read. These joint goals promote literacy, reading comprehension, physical movement, and time outdoors with friends and family. Books will change on a quarterly basis throughout the year.
At the grand opening, families with children went from each podium to the next, taking turns reading the page and then following the instructions that were given. They were comical, walking like a sloth or pantomiming their favorite musical instrument as they moved to the next podium.
Bencke told Sapulpa Times that the podiums will be switched out at least four times a year, because each book has to be given permission by its author and publisher.
The trail is available now at Kelly Lane Park. The book is available at the Sapulpa Public Library and also at Amazon.
