Wadesboro Police Chief Janie Schutz hopes to connect with local children through the power of words.

Schutz visited Wadesboro Housing Authority apartments in the Myrtlewood Lane neighborhood July 15 to start reading the classic "Watership Down" by Richard Adams. She hopes to visit other places around Wadesboro and finish reading the book before school starts in the fall.

The evening started modestly with Schutz borrowing a chair to sit on.

She spoke to a group of children and discussed how there was nowhere nearby for one boy, who had a basketball, to play. She also made small talk, asking how old they were or what their grade was in school.

She read in front of the apartment's office and cautioned that most books take a while to grip the reader or listener. The children huddled in front of her.

Some of them sat on the grass; one girl had her younger sister in her lap. The boy with the ball sat on it.

She explained that she thought the book would have useful lessons for the children. The plot follows a warren of rabbits whose home is destroyed by a land developer.

"It's called an allegory," she said.

"There are some words in it that I don't know," she said, but frequently stopped to explain a word or summarize what had happened in the story up to that point.

At first there were about half a dozen children but more came later. Some would leave for a time and come back.

After she finished she handed out some lollipops and said she would try to return July 23.

"I want to get teenagers and adults," she said. There weren't any this time.

She said she hopes to establish rapport with adults as well since children take their cues from the adults they know.

"The book is such a phenomenal book," she said. She explained it had moral and ethical dimensions about how to treat one another.

She is aware that things might not pan out.

"If it's a flop, so what?" she asked.