A botanical garden meets children's literature

Angela Fitzgerald: It’s always story time at Bookworm Gardens in Sheboygan as we turn the page to uncover a spellbinding world of children’s literature.

Child: Over here!

Angela Fitzgerald: Our story begins with Elizabeth Wieland, Executive Director of the nonprofit botanical garden.

Elizabeth Wieland: Bookworm’s mission is to inspire the love of books and nature in the young and young at heart. When you think about our mission and you think about young and young at heart, I really believe that we have an incredible experience and inspiration for people of all ages here on this site. I love it when there are families here and children here. I also love it when there are adults without children and older individuals. That’s really important to us that we have both.

Parent: There we go!

Elizabeth Wieland: In many of our exhibits, they play with scale, so you get to feel like you are either incredibly small or incredibly large. [child exclaiming]

Angela Fitzgerald: Can you tell us more about the spaces in the gardens?

Elizabeth Wieland: Gosh, there are so many spaces. So in each site, we’ve taken the book and then interpreted it in some way. Some of ’em, you’re meant to interact with. You could stick your head through this donut here in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Some of it, you’re just meant to observe and ponder and think about.

Angela Fitzgerald: So I love the attention to detail. Can we go check out some more?

Elizabeth Wieland: I would love to! Let’s go explore.

Angela Fitzgerald: We’re off to discover the hidden details found within the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs garden.

Elizabeth Wieland: So I grabbed the book.

Angela Fitzgerald: Oh, okay.

Elizabeth Wieland: To show you, because there’s some really special elements in the book that are in the space. One of them, we looked at the bread house before, and here in the book is the bread house.

[playful music] [child exclaiming]

Elizabeth Wieland: So in front of us, these are berry timeless coral bells. These are caramel coral bells.

Angela Fitzgerald: The food-inspired names?

Elizabeth Wieland: The food-inspired names! That one’s a cinnamon fern. This is the guacamole heuchera. So we really love to add those details in the garden spaces.

Angela Fitzgerald: Thank you, that’s interesting. Each garden is a new book.

Elizabeth Wieland: So the books exist in these pillars. They’re all laminated and protected in here so that you can open the door, pull out the book, and then experience the space right there at your fingertips.

Angela Fitzgerald: I love that. With every book, a literary world comes to life.

Elizabeth Wieland: So we’re in the area of the gardens now that’s called the farm. And there are quite a few books in this section. One of our very most popular is this book, “Little Blue Truck.” And you can crawl into the truck and drive it and go beep beep beep, just like the little blue truck. And we have live chickens.

Angela Fitzgerald: I was gonna say, I see the live chickens!

Elizabeth Wieland: Yep. And then this is the Johnny Appleseed tree. It’s pretty cool because it’s genetically connected. We have the paperwork to show its lineage back to an original Johnny Appleseed tree that was planted here. But there’s lots of gardens here in the farm. It’s one of our most popular spaces.

Angela Fitzgerald: Thank you so much. I appreciate your tour and your time today, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Wieland: It’s been so much fun having you. Thanks so much, and please come back and visit us again.

Angela Fitzgerald: Definitely will.

[playful music]