Story Scouts ARE...
KIDS in grades k-5 -- or so! -- who like to make up stories and mini-museum exhibits! They research them in museum archives and through primary source interviews, then write, dictate their thoughts to a scribe, act out their stories and illustrate them. That's how Story Scouts make books! It looks like this...
Story Scouts help visitors write postcards and letters at Letteracy Deck, and do their own writing, too.
In side the Cook County History Museum in our Mini-museum Exhibit space we tell visitors to Letteracy Deck what we're doing. Their questions and reactions help us understand how to tell the story of John Beargrease.
We write the minute we have an idea! We get ideas from every conversation and from reading letters written in Cook County 100 years ago.
How we do it, where we meet
We meet in schools in workshops conducted by Minnesota Children's Press mentors who visit the classroom. And we meet after school. In the summer, we meet as part of YMCA day camp at Letteracy Deck at the Cook County History Museum.
We meet in schools in workshops conducted by Minnesota Children's Press mentors who visit the classroom. And we meet after school. In the summer, we meet as part of YMCA day camp at Letteracy Deck at the Cook County History Museum.
Story Scouts at the Cook County YMCA work in writeshops to write and illustrate the content for our Letters Mini-Museum exhibit based on the life and achievements of John Beargrease, famed North Shore Ojibwe mail carrier, 1895-1903.
Mike Keyport of Grand Portage is John Beargrease's great grandson. He visited Story Scouts' writeshops three times to share the history and achievements of his great grandfather.
OUR BOOKS WIN AWARDS!
Our NewEST Book is available NOW! We Launched April 8, 2025!
Look for it in Grand Marais in independent book stores, wherever books and gifts are sold: Drury Lane Books, Lake Superior Trading Post, the Big Lake, Cook County History Museum, Johnson Heritage Post in downtown Grand Marais.
In St. Paul it is available at: Red Balloon Books, Next Chapter Books – and more will be stocking it! In the Minneapolis, you can find it at Wild Rumpus Books, Birch Bark Books and Magers & Quinn Booksellers.
In St. Paul it is available at: Red Balloon Books, Next Chapter Books – and more will be stocking it! In the Minneapolis, you can find it at Wild Rumpus Books, Birch Bark Books and Magers & Quinn Booksellers.
Our Next Book is on John Beargrease!
It is based on our North Shore letters mini-museum exhibit about John Beargrease and his historic contribution of connecting all cultures of the North Shore by delivering the winter mail by dogsled, 1895-1903.
It will launch when the Cook County History Museum opens for the season and our mini-museum exhibit goes live at Letteracy Deck in summer 2025. Come visit us–and send some letters!
It will launch when the Cook County History Museum opens for the season and our mini-museum exhibit goes live at Letteracy Deck in summer 2025. Come visit us–and send some letters!
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