A fictional six-legged spider named Jimmy, created and revered by local children, is the face of a new StoryWalk display at Rockfield Park in Bel Air.
“The Top Hat: Jimmy’s Journey” is the newest interactive activity at Rockfield Park for children — a 12-panel story that can be read as visitors walk the sidewalk that leads above the playground. StoryWalks were created in 2007 and are registered service marks of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Vermont. The goal is to increase the visibility of local libraries and improve children’s listening and speaking skills, according to the library’s website.
The StoryWalk at Rockfield Park was written and illustrated by youth attendees at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harford County in Churchville. Although completed over the summer, the StoryWalk debuted at the park on Nov. 8, said Jenn Blosser, director of Faith Formation at UUFHC.
“Like a lot of congregations right now, numbers are small. People are busy. Once upon a time no sports happened on Sundays and now families are just pulled everywhere,” Blosser said. “We had this interesting situation where we asked ourselves, ‘What do you do when attendance fluctuates all the time?’ You can’t do a normal Sunday School or a normal curriculum because you don’t know who will show up and if you’ll have a class.”
Leaders at the church wanted to find an activity the children could complete from week to week, one unaffected by the number of those in attendance. That activity was a StoryWalk, developed over a two-month span in the summer by roughly 10 children and older youth, Blosser said. At the story’s center: a fictional spider the children have admired since 2022.
“Jimmy McTophat is, I mean, my God, he’s homegrown mythology. Just straight up legendary,” Blosser said.
Blosser said the character is based on a real spider, one accidentally hit by an air-born marshmallow launched from a catapult at the church’s LARP, or live-action role-playing, camp two years ago. The spider lost two of its legs, Blosser said, and the children named it Jimmy.
For the remainder of the camp, drawings of six-legged spiders donning top hats began appearing on the children’s lesson papers and the sidewalks outside. The spider was also a popular conversation piece among campers.
“It was a thing, and I was actually quite annoyed at first, and I’m not gonna lie, because I worked hard to put other animal narratives together for the week, but whatever,” Blosser said. “I thought, well, this will end after summer camp, but it did not. Jimmy’s chalk graffiti stayed around for like a year.”
As Jimmy’s popularity grew after the camp, Blosser said instructors began to use the character as a way to teach important lessons. His lore has thus expanded in classes and group discussions over the past two years.
“What’s fascinating is that this is a character that the kids created. We’ve had lots of new folks come since then and some of the original kids aren’t with us anymore, but his legend is still going. New people keep being welcomed into the story.”
When it came to developing the StoryWalk, Blosser said the children were divided into groups and each group had a specialized responsibility in completing the stories. Some youth were in charge of writing, others were in charge of drawing, and their works would be picked up and completed from week to week as different children came and went. Church leaders involved themselves to make minor adjustments to details such as grammar, but Blosser said the imagery and word choice were left mostly to the youth.
The result was a story that aims to promote inclusion, as six-legged Jimmy learns themes of “self-discovery and acceptance” after losing two of his legs, according to the the Bel Air Arts and Entertainment District website.
A member of UUFHC who worked for the Town of Bel Air was then approached about having the StoryWalk displayed at a park in the county, in a location accessible for anyone to see, including those with disabilities. Rockfield Park in Bel Air was the selected destination for the story, which will be available for the public to read until winter weather events prompt the signs to come down, Blosser said. The story boards are then expected to return in the spring.
The church hopes to replace the story annually with sequels, prequels and spin-offs to Jimmy’s story. Leaders have also been approached about having a duplicate of the StoryWalk made to appear in the Bel Air Parking Garage.
Rockfield Park is located at 501 East Churchville Road in Bel Air and is open daily from dawn until dusk.
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