‘The Little Woods Runner’

A local grandmother’s ambitious endeavor to facilitate her granddaughter’s love of nature has since turned into a Caldecott-nominated children’s book titled “The Little Woods Runner.”
Colleen Barksdale, whose first literary endeavor was an autobiography titled “Nakedness: Covered in Blood,” is a retired Minneapolis teacher and current Forest Lake resident. She and her husband often host their four grandchildren at their country home. One of those children in particular, Dajahnae, loved nothing more than to stomp through the woods during her many visits to the Barksdale home.broadstreet.zone(48036);
“At first, we were a little shocked because Dajahnae was a city girl with very little nature experience, but every time her grandpa asked what she wanted to do, she begged to run in the woods,” Barksdale said.
Eventually, spring time came around and Barksdale knew that the woods would be too overgrown and full of ticks come summer and Dajahnae’s running through the woods would have

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