Nature, Literacy and Maine Libraries

Many Maine libraries celebrate the Maine outdoors and support nature literacy with StoryWalks outside the library along nearby nature trails and with nature programs in the library. A StoryWalk offers walkers and hikers a story to read along a trail. A book's pages (usually a children's book) are separated, laminated, and then attached to signposts along a trail or short walk. It's a great way to get the family into Maine's beautiful outdoors and share a book and conversation at the same time. It's just another way that Maine libraries serve their communities.

View a slideshow at http://www.maine.gov/msl/topics/nature.shtml of the StoryWalk along the Haystack Mountain Trail in Liberty. This walk uses the children's book, "Thanks to the Animals" by Passamaquoddy storyteller Alan Sockabasin. Thanks to Ivan O. Davis - Liberty Library for supporting this StoryWalk.

Most Maine libraries offer programs about nature such as outdoor exploration, safety in the woods, and animal track and plant identification. Other Maine libraries throughout the state offer nature resources and books.

This fall many Maine libraries with special programming will help "Celebrate the Maine Woods!", a project by the Maine Woods Forever nonprofit organization. This is a project "that will increase public awareness and appreciation of the unique values of Maine's forests and woodlands through a year-long series of activities, events and exhibitions." Maine libraries recently received the book, "Wildness Within, Wildness Without, Exploring Maine's Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail" from the Maine Woods Forever. http://www.thoreauwabanakitrail.org/book.html