Children walking in some woods in John F. Kennedy Memorial Park may come face-to-face with The Lorax or The Bar-ba-loot.

That’s nothing to be concerned about, however. Both critters are completely harmless. In fact, they are not even alive. The creatures from a Dr. Seuss tale have been recreated as wooden sculptures as a part of a newer feature in the Children’s Forest at the park north of Fort Dodge.

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

They were set up to create a kind of literary attraction called the Story Walk Trail. It is a three-tenths of a mile long loop.

While walking on that loop, kids and their parents can read an entire book by stopping at markers in which a page or two of a storybook are posted. The books get rotated out on a regular basis. The current one is “The Star Catcher” by Anna Smithers and illustrated by Nino Aptsiauri. It tells the story of a rabbit’s quest to be happy forever.

Work on the trail started early in the fall of 2020. It debuted the following spring.

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.