Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Bookworm Gardens
Bookworm Gardens is a vibrant, playful garden that enhances children's literature, the natural world, and the imagination.
gift shop
The two acre garden offers the young and young at heart the opportunity for free, unstructured play in a beautiful and secure environment.
story telling gallery
Once upon
a time there was a lovely little town in Wisconsin named Sheboygan. Now
Sheboygan, and its darling neighbors of Kohler, Sheboygan Falls and Plymouth,
were filled with children, churches, cheese and chairs, and were wonderful
places to raise a family. Schools were exceptional, local businesses thrived,
and we enjoyed eating cheese and bratwurst. Lake Michigan kept us all “cooler
near the lake.” We were even named the “Best Place to Raise a Family” by
Reader’s Digest. When our children weren’t in school or helping on the farm,
they were climbing trees, building forts or curled up with a good book. Life was
wonderful.
Then over the course of time, families got busier and busier, and the children
didn’t have time to play outdoors as much. Reality TV replaced real life
adventure and reading for many, and playing computer games became the most
popular pastime. This made many parents and educators sad.
Now a group of adults came along, and they had an idea to change all that. What
if they built a special place, just for kids and their parents and grandparents
where they could play outside and reconnect with nature? A safe and enclosed
spot designed by award winning professionals to capture their imaginations and
bring all their senses to life? An exuberant, playful space where joy is
contagious? Welcome to Bookworm Gardens!
books for reading
viewed by my wife, Marlene E Roeseler
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For the next year she mulled the
possibility over in her mind. Because Sheboygan
County has no botanical garden, the task was
daunting--creating not only the garden, programming,
and the staff to run it--but setting up a not for
profit corporation and raising the money necessary
to build the garden. The idea gelled after several
meetings with the late Bob Peterson, retired City
Development Director, who convinced her not only
that the idea was a viable one, it was a project
that MUST happen. Bob set up many meetings with
local officials to help find a site, and after
looking at several different possibilities they met
with Ray Hernandez, dean of the University of
Wisconsin Sheboygan. Ray immediately saw the value
of the project, and indicated not only willingness
to provide us with a beautiful location for the
garden, but also to offer students’ help as interns,
artists, and teachers. After our blessing from Ray,
we met with County officials, on whose land the
university is built. A wonderful relationship was
born.
More Photos of Explore
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The next years were spent in the design phase, identifying books to include through input from teachers, librarians, and reading specialists, and designing gardens around them. Finding a core of committed individuals to help make the garden a reality, we became incorporated, applied for not-for profit status, and began the task of applying for grants and soliciting donations. During this time we also contacted landscape architect Herb Schaal from EDAW of Fort Collins, Colorado. Herb had designed twelve children’s gardens throughout the United States at the time, and we felt that he could take our concept plan and transform in into a world-class children’s garden. Our idea, that of designing a garden completely around literature, was completely unique to Bookworm Gardens.
More Photos of Grow
Johnny Appleseed tree
More Photos of Celebrate
volunteer opportunities |
We celebrated our Grand Opening on
October 16th, 2010, joined by over 2000 joyful
visitors. Now that the garden is open, our
attention has turned to programming. Summer camps,
classes, field trips and special events are all
underway. Yes, we have more to do—more money to
raise, more gardens to build- but the core of the
garden is garden is complete, and is beautiful
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Text from bookwormgardens.org
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