'Wolf's Coming' to Knight Park Saturday

Young Collingswood readers can get excited about the possibilities of books in an active and entertaining way on Saturday, as the borough hosts its very first Story Walk.

Organized by Jean Brennan, Chair of the Collingswood Book Festival, the event will kick off at 10 a.m. on the playground in Knight Park.

It might be a bit of a slog in the aftermath of the tropical storm, but the experience is one-of-a-kind (and the pages are laminated).

Story Walk was developed by Montpelier, VT librarian, Ann Ferguson. Organizers post a page or two at a time throughout a small area so that children can take in a story and some fresh air at the same time.

The inaugural Collingswood Story Walk will feature the book Wolf's Coming! by author-illustrator Joe Kulka, who Brennan said "was quite excited to hear that we were going to use his book."

She settled on Wolf's Coming! because of its popularity with her young grandson. Its large, colorful pictures and suspenseful plot told in rhyming couplets made the book an easy choice for the exercise.

One odd quirk of the Story Walk, at least for organizers, is that people like Brennan, who work so hard to preserve books, must physically destroy brand-new copies in order to put on the event.

"I feel kind of bad doing that," she confessed. "Especially since they’re absolutely brand spanking new books and they’ll never be able to be put back together again.

On the plus side, however, Brennan said, Story Walk organizers are supporting the authors by buying two copies of the book, and recycling political signs from the most recent commissioners election to mount them.

"Our feeling is that we hope to be able to use it again year to year, and maybe we’ll be less bothered by it as the years go by," Brennan said.

At the end of the Story Walk, Brennan said, organizers have posted a suggestion box. If all goes as planned, she'll host two more over the summer: one downtown and a third on the day of the Book Festival (October 5).

"If we get a lot of positive feedback and it’s fairly well attended, then we’ll continue it the following year," she said.

The self-guided, open-ended Collingswood Story Walk runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Knight Park. Brave the elements for this one-of-a-kind experience!