Around a Woodsy Corner is a great book to share with your kids or grandkids.
The idea for her children’s book Around a Woodsy Corner came to Marcy Bolinger after her grandchildren had visited her Hovland cabin. After a day of riding ATVs from Tom Lake to a bluff overlooking the Pigeon River, enjoying all the sights and sounds of the forest, Bolinger decided to capture the day for her grandkids. The result is a delightful nature book, filled with encounters with the animals that inhabit our boreal forest.
The book starts at grandpa and grandma’s cabin by the lake—a remarkable rendering of the Bolingers’ cabin on Tom Lake. Illustrator Rhonda Weitzel’s artwork is perfect for the story—simple and almost childlike—a true recording of what the grandkids remember of the journey around a woodsy corner.
Bolinger leads the reader—and the listening child—through the pages with questions: “Around a corner, sitting on a log in the distance, guess what we see?” and “As we stop to look around, guess what we see bouncing through the meadow chasing butterflies?”
The children in the book spot a fox, a bear, a moose, a beaver and more. They also enjoy a picnic, pick berries, hike and go fishing with grandpa.
The book captures a perfect Northwoods day that ends with pajama-clad kids safe and warm in the cabin, listening to the sound of wolves howling in the distance before drifting off to sleep, dreaming sweet dreams of their day with grandma and grandpa in the woods.
The book was produced by Nace Hagemann of Gunflint Trail Productions, LLC after a frustrating search for a publisher. Bolinger was surprised when other publishers turned down the book because it included a family ATVing. “It’s not a book about ATVs. It’s about a family getting together and enjoying time in the woods, enjoying the animals of the forest—enjoying what’s around a woodsy corner!”
This reviewer is glad that Bolinger persisted and Hagemann took a chance on the book. It captures a day of adventure not only for Bolinger and her grandkids, but for many other Northland parents and grandparents as well. It’s a nice book to share with a child in your life at the end of a day traveling around a woodsy corner.
Around a Woodsy Corner is available at Amazon.com or locally at Birch Bark Books and Lake Superior Trading Post.
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