Page 26 of "Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth" is in Spanish. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — This year, the StoryWalk at Morgan’s Grove Park got an upgrade, with funding from the Nora Roberts Foundation.

The Nora Roberts Foundation, which primarily works to support literacy, provided enough funds for six new books to be purchased for the StoryWalk.

“We have a new StoryWalk up today,” said Carrie Blessing on Monday. “We installed our newest StoryWalk. It starts at the spring house and it circles around the stream here.”

Blessing is the president of the Shepherdstown Community Club (SCC), which owns Morgan’s Grove Park and established the StoryWalk around the park’s property. The club has regularly rotated the books that are featured on the StoryWalk in the past. However, up to this point in time, none of those books have been bilingual.

With the Nora Roberts Foundation’s grant, the StoryWalk will now be featuring books in both Spanish and English.

“We have a large Latin community here. A lot of kids are also learning Spanish in school. They will all be able to benefit from our StoryWalk being in both languages,” Blessing said. “This is our way of reaching out to everyone.”

Each page in the StoryWalk will be double-sided, with the same illustration on each side — the only difference between the two sides will be the language printed on them.

“It’s so cool!” Blessing said, mentioning she recently ran into a Latino man with children, who she had told about the new StoryWalk. “When I told him it was in Spanish, too, his face just lit up! He was really excited.

“A lot of Latin parents that I talk to maybe don’t have the greatest grasp of English, but they can now walk around and read the story with their kids,” Blessing said. “I see a lot of Latino families enjoying the park, and so this is just a way to reach out and support the people who support us. It’s including everyone!”

Blessing also encouraged adults who are learning Spanish to check out the StoryWalk.

“You can practice your Spanish in a different way, by doing the StoryWalk! I’m on 40 days straight with Duolingo, so I think that’s a great idea,” Blessing said, referring to the online language learning platform.

The only challenge the SCC experienced, was finding enough children’s books that fit the StoryWalk’s new focus.

“It was a little tricky!” Blessing said. “We had to change up some of the book titles, because it can be a little difficult to find children’s books in English and Spanish.”

The books are being rotated on a monthly basis, with September’s book being, “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth,” by Oliver Jeffers.

“The idea for a Spanish-English StoryWalk was developed by a librarian in Vermont during the pandemic. I just loved it and thought, ‘We should do that!'” Blessing said, mentioning her childhood best friend’s parents predominantly spoke Spanish, making this project personal for her. “I applied for the Nora Roberts Foundation grant last year and we got approved. Nora Roberts covered the expenses for the signs, the lamination and purchasing the books from Four Seasons Books.”