Our Shared Story was a 9 month project from December 2024 to August 2025 borne out of our 3 year Playful Places, Playful People Project, supported by The National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund. The project aim was to create an illustrated picture book, aimed at under 5s but for all of the family to enjoy. Inspired by Wolves Play Cafe’s exploratory play approach, play sessions and a love of the world around us, ‘A Walk in the Woods’ celebrates 6 years of playing across the city in beautiful nature havens on our doorsteps.
With illustrations by a local illustrator Jennifer Wren Designs, and a story co-produced with our playful team, the book aims to celebrate the simplicity of play and the opportunities of exploring the world around us. The storybook draws inspiration from early years foundation research to support learning opportunities through play for readers big and small. This blog shares the journey and outcomes of the project and how the storybook was created.
Co-Founder Lisa Stallard at ‘A Walk in the Woods’ book launch with limited edition copy of the picture book
Why did we want to create a picture book?
We worked together with our team to workshop the aims of creating a bespoke picture book under the following headings:
Impact – Connecting with young children, the families we serve and our wider community through reading.
Play – Sharing our passion for open-ended, exploratory outdoor play and modelling simple play for caregivers.
Investment – Creating a product that can contribute to the organisation’s income-generation strategy to support accessible play in the city.
Legacy – Building the legacy of Wolves Play Cafe, passing on stories and memories for families beyond the Playful People, Playful Places project.
Project Journey
The team began the journey by :
– consulting local creative practitioners and authors in Wolverhampton
– taking part in storytelling workshops facilitated by our project lead
– creating storyboards
– sharing our favourite children’s books
From this we developed a main character called “Woody”, based on the Wolves Play Cafe wolf logo. The workshops also with themes for storytelling that complement the early years foundation framework such as exploring the world around us, counting, rhythm, emotions and identifying objects by name to support the learning of young readers.
Storytelling ideas were gathered from local young children to be used as inspiration and collaboration for the storybook.
The illustrations created by Jennifer Saunders, aim to capture a realistic representation of the outdoor settings of our nature play sessions for recognition amongst readers.
Project Lead Tia Manomano with Co-Founder Helen Stallard, chatting about favourite picture books at the onset of project
Ready to launch! Saturday 19th July 2025
A total of 57 play friends came along to celebrate the book launch took place at Boundary Way Allotments and Community Garden on Saturday 19th July 2025.
We had a lovely time, with families taking part in:
- a storytelling of the new book
- nature-play activities such as mud kitchen, bug hunting
- a collaborative craft activity creating seed mosaic tiles inspired by the plot in the story to later be created into a collage mural to be displayed in the Boundary Way picnic hut.
A total of 150 first edition books were printed with copies donated to our local community spaces such as libraries, stay and play groups and nurseries as well as our play friends enjoying some too!
Children creating their nature mural tiles for the collaborative art piece at the launch
Listening to children's voices
Listening and recording childrens’ voices is so important to us at Wolves Play Cafe. Through the project’s journey, children were invited to create their own story inspired by illustrations in the book using image prompts to create their own illustrations or share their thoughts and feelings in response to the story. Local Play Partners All Saints Nursery and Low Hill Nursery took part in this too.
Children at the launch were able to share their thoughts around the story through pictures and written feedback, supporting listening to childrens’ voices
Library sessions
In August during the school summer holidays, we collaborated with Wolverhampton Libraries to deliver storytime and craft sessions in 3 local libraries for families: Whitmore Reans Library, Warstones Library and Wolverhampton Central Library. The sessions included nursery rhymes, story time of ‘A Walk in the Woods’ and a craft activity creating a ladybird inspired by the ladybird character in the story with lots of local families joining in.
Craft activity at the library reading sessions during the summer holidays
Inspiring families with simple play
We loved hearing how reading ‘A Walk in the Woods’ inspired families to play at home and encouraged activities beyond reading the book such as recreating their own bug hotel, or making a pond space in their garden.
The story inspired a local family to build a bug hotel in their garden
Happy Stories
- Local playfriends old and new attended our book launch to listen to our story being read for the first time
- 25 local community settings received the book to share in the spaces for families who access their services.
- The book is helping support our income generation to support creating accessible play opportunities for families in the city
- We were proud to create a story that is inspired by the way we play in sessions and supporting memories of Wolves Play Cafe for the families who’ve been such an important part of our playtimes.
How can I support the project?
By purchasing ‘A Walk in the Woods’, you are directly investing into our organisation, and therefore supporting us to continue creating accessible play opportunities for young children and their caregivers across the city.
Grab your copy of A Walk in the Woods here!