When Bigfoot and a host of other famous cryptids were spotted in a Virginia park in October, area kids set out on foot to find them with help from their local library.
No, Bigfoot, Mothman, and the Loch Ness Monster weren’t really in Virginia, but they were there in spirit as part of a scavenger hunt hosted by Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library in Christiansburg on October 27. The brainchild of bookmobile librarian Sally Stauffer, the scavenger hunt lead the young participants across a park in Blacksburg in search of 12 cryptids—Bigfoot, the Flatwoods Monster, Mothman, El Chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, the Loveland Frogman, the Fresno Nightcrawler, the Hoop Snake, the Wampus Cat, the Loch Ness Monster, the Snallygaster, and the Jackalople. Stauffer said in Programming Librarian that the goal for the hunt was to create an outreach program that “matched the Halloween season; caught the interest of children of all ages; and taught them about the weird, wonderful world of cryptids.”
Using a checklist or a coloring book with information about each of the cryptids, both provided by the library, kids roamed the park looking for the beasts which were represented by hidden laminated cutouts. When a monster was found, it got marked on the sheet. Kids who found all of them won stickers and temporary tattoos featuring the cryptids. Older (upper-elementary age) kids got two prizes for completing the book, but those doing just the checklist only received one. Stauffer called the book “hard mode” and the checklist “easy mode,” posing it as a challenge which most kids gladly took her up on.
Stauffer also brought the bookmobile to the event, where visitors could check out any books they wanted as long as they had a library card. She made sure to stock up on non-kid books about cryptids before the hunt, and almost all of them were checked out by the end of the event.
The event was an overwhelming success, Stauffer said.
“It was wildly successful, despite being very simple, with a whopping 115 kids completing the hunt,” she said. In all, 181 visitors interacted with the event by speaking with Stauffer, playing the scavenger hunt, picking up books and coloring sheets, and checking out books in the bookmobile. More than half of the attendees wore Halloween costumes. The fun wasn’t limited to just the participants, though.
“I was able to geek out about cryptids, folklore, and the importance of oral traditions with kids and adults of all ages,” Stauffer said.
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Image by RyanMcGuire, via PixaBay.
