Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
When isolation and distancing were a necessity a few years ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pocahontas County Free Libraries and Visitors Centers found a creative way to safely provide stories to youngsters ~ the StoryWalk.
A children’s book was spread through the town of Marlinton, with one page per window of downtown businesses. Much like a scavenger hunt, the pages came with directions to the next one, giving visitors a unique way of enjoying a fun story and visiting businesses, as well.
The book trail was so popular that the libraries have continued to make story trails each summer.
This year, the StoryWalk will follow the theme of each First Friday, and a new book will be in place for a month.
“We decided this year to do that as our contribution to Marlinton’s First Fridays,” Hallie Herold, director of operations said. “For the first one, since it was the Evening with the Arts, we put it up just in Discovery Junction, so you could walk around Farmers Market and around into the Opera House to get a nice tour of everything.”
After that First Friday, the book was then moved to start at the Greenbrier River Trailhead in Marlinton, down the trail to Main Street, through the businesses of Main Street and onto Second Avenue, ending at Discovery Junction.
The next book was placed last Friday and is a West Virginia book titled “M is for Mountain State.”
This year, the other libraries in Pocahontas County are getting involved and will have trails, as well.
“Since we will be doing a different story for each First Friday and there are five of those, the five libraries will have five different stories that can move around the different communities,” Herold said.
“Once we take the last month’s down, it will go to a different branch, and we’re going to try to share where it is so if you didn’t see it in Marlinton, you can go to Durbin and catch the StoryWalk,” she added.
It takes a lot of preparation for the StoryWalk and the librarians have to break one of the cardinal rules of books – ripping them apart.
“It’s not often that librarians tear apart books,” Herold said, laughing. “We order three copies of the book because it takes two copies to make the trail and then we want to have a copy in the library to check out.”
In the past, Pocahontas County has borrowed books for the trail from Greenbrier County, and Herold said she hopes this collaboration can continue where books can be shared between neighboring counties.
The StoryWalk Project was created by Anne Ferguson, of Montpelier, Vermont, and was developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.
StoryWalk is a registered service mark owned by Ferguson.
