‘StoryWalk’ in Apache Junction by day or night is popular for families
Richard H. Dyer
James and Brittany Bishop of Gold Canyon with their 4-year-old son, Archer, at the Apache Junction Public Library’s StoryWalk at Prospector Park, 3015 N. Idaho Road.
Youngsters and adults can combine their love of reading with exercise on an outdoor path at the Apache Junction Public Library’s StoryWalk at Prospector Park.
Pages of the picture book “How to Spot a Dinosaur” by author Suzy Senior and illustrator Dan Taylor are attached to posts installed along a walkway that snakes from the north side of the park through ballfields and then east to the southeast section of the park, 3015 N. Idaho Road.
Anna and Jeff Luttrell of Apache Junction brought their 7-year-old child to a 6:30-8:30 p.m. May 16 special StoryWalk night walk marking the quarterly changing of the book title.
“We constantly come here for the StoryWalk,” Jeff Luttrell said.
“We do, yes — kind of a tradition,” Anna Luttrell said. “It’s just nice to get our kiddo out and it’s free. Everything costs so much nowadays. It encourages them to read — it helps him with his love of reading.”
The recent night walk attracted children and adults from outside the city as well.
San Tan Valley residents Kendra Long and Mikey Smith brought five children ages 9, 8, 6, 5 and 3 to the night walk.
“To get the kids out of the house, keep them busy,” Smith said.
“This is our first StoryWalk, our first time to the park,” Long said.
James and Brittany Bishop of Gold Canyon attended the night walk with their son, Archer.
“It’s nice to have things like this,” James Bishop said, adding he likes that it involves walking. “The outdoors, so that’s fantastic. We try to get him out to all of this stuff.”
“It is an opportunity to enrich himself in different types of stories that we don’t really normally gravitate toward,” Brittany Bishop said.
Chandler resident Abacu Ortiz brought children ages 7, 6, 5 and 4 to the StoryWalk after a birthday party was held at the park.
“We have a party over here with my niece — she lives here. My grandchildren have never seen anything like this,” he said of the StoryWalk.
Local StoryWalk since 2021
The Apache Junction Public Library learned in 2021 it was awarded an $8,090 grant through the state library for the 18-station story walk. The StoryWalk Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont, and developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, it states at https://www.ajpl.org/storywalk.
Books are shown in Apache Junction’s StoryWalk year-round, Outreach Supervisory Librarian Megan Carbiener said.
“We always have a picture book up in our StoryWalk at Prospector Park (year-round), but we change the book quarterly. We hold the night walks throughout the year when we put up a new book. We try not to hold them when it’s too hot, so we’ve tried holding them in September, November, January or February, and May,” she said.
“I am the one who chooses the picture books, but I take feedback from patrons and suggestions from other library staff. I choose books based on the season or holidays around that time — in February it was National Love Your Pet Day, so I picked a dog book and invited people to bring their dogs to the night walk,” Carbiener said.
That book was “Gaston” by Kelly DiPucchio, a picture book about a bulldog raised by poodles who discovers he’s different and learns that family is about love, not appearances, it states at https://www.ajpl.org/storywalk.
“Additionally, I try to pick books that are relatively new, popular, have the right number of pages to fit on our posts, don’t have too many words, have bright pictures, etc.,” she said. “I’ve picked a dinosaur book this time because our Summer Reading theme is ‘Unearth a Story’ and the book will stay up throughout the summer. I also pick books that feature some movement so I can add motions to the pages. For example, I might include ‘stomp your feet like a T-Rex to the next post.’ We want to make the StoryWalk active for minds and bodies.”
Carbiener said she tries to pick books that will interest children to adults, targeting ages 3-12 — young kids to tweens.
“However, we have families that bring littles and they read the book to them, and we also have teens and adults that enjoy the stories. When I go out to the park to change the story, I often have adults approach me and share that they read and enjoy the books during their regular walks at Prospector Park,” she said.
During the May 16 night walk the city of Apache Junction was celebrating Kids to Parks Day so the library brought hula hoops, sidewalk chalk and other items for the children.
“We usually hold the night walks a couple times a year. Our last one was in February, and we had about 40 attendees, but we’ve had night walks in the past where we’ve had up to 100 people join us,” Carbiener said. “(T)he night walks are such a great way to reach out to our community. When we’re there in the park we meet people who may have never visited the library, so it’s great to be outside the building and meet people where they are in one of our amazing city parks.
For information on the Apache Junction Public Library, 1177 N. Idaho Road, go to https://www.ajpl.org.
Richard H. Dyer can be reached at rdyer@iniusa.org, or on X @rhdyer. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines, https://www.yourvalley.net/civility-checklist/.
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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