Children walking in the woods around John F. Kennedy Memorial Park may come face-to-face with The Lorax.

That’s nothing to be concerned about, however. The Lorax is completely harmless. In fact, it is not even alive. The critter from a Dr. Seuss tale has been recreated as a wooden sculpture as a part of the newest addition to the Children’s Forest at the park north of Fort Dodge.

It will be joined by a handful of other characters from children’s stories that are being positioned along a loop of trail.

All of the character sculptures were created by chain saw artist Gary Keenan.

They are being set up to create a kind of literary trail where kids can walk around, see the renditions of various storybook characters and even read a bit about them.

Work on the trail started early this fall. The entire thing is expected to be ready for visitors next summer.

We think anything that can get kids interested in reading is a good thing, and this trail project is a very innovative way to introduce young people to the fascinating worlds to be found in books. We hope that after seeing the character sculptures, kids will want to dig into the books that The Lorax and its wooden cohorts came from.

The project was made possible by the Friends of Webster County Conservation, which paid the $4,200 cost of the project.

We thank the Friends group, the staff at Webster County Conservation and Gary Keenan for creating this unique attraction.