Author: Loree Burns

WOODSWOMAN
By Anne LaBastille
Dutton, 1976

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

I’ve not read Elizabeth Gilbert’s runaway bestseller, EAT, PRAY, LOVE, but so many of the people around me have (even the pastor at my UU church preached about the book) that I feel I got the gist of it. And with all due respect to Ms. Gilbert and her Search for Everything, I’ve decided that if I find myself disillusioned with the world, or at a place in my life when there is time for extended self-reflection, I’m not going to travel the globe to do it. No, I’m going to find myself a lonely cabin in the woods and conduct my Search among rocks and trees that have spent their entire lives, like me, here in New England.

Knowing this, you’ll understand my fascination with the book WOODSWOMAN. After a heartbreaking divorce, author Anne LaBastille bought a parcel of land in the Adirondack wilderness, built herself a small cabin, and lived there alone for ten years. What she learns—both the practical things and the spiritual things—are utterly fascinating; reading her story opened my eyes to the reality of my cabin-in-the-woods dream. Namely, that I might not be up for it.

No matter. Sometimes living vicariously is enough for me. And because LaBastille stayed in her cabin long after the book closed, there are three additional Woodswoman books for me to read and ponder … from the safety and comfort of my decidedly un-rustic home.

How about you? If you had the time to ‘find yourself’, would you look in the woods (à la Anne LaBastille), around the globe (à la Elizabeth Gilbert), or somewhere else entirely?

ABE LINCOLN CROSSES A CREEK
By Deborah Hopkinson & John Hendrix
(Schwartz & Wade, 2008)

Category: Picture book fiction

This is an interesting picture book, and if that children’s literature book circle I dream about existed—the one where a group of interested adults get together to read and discuss children’s literature over wine and chocolate—I would definitely choose this as a book to explore.

Firstly, is it really fiction? I mean, yes, there is made-up dialog, and that is typically a deal-breaker as far as biography goes. But the author uses a unique format to tell this story from Abe Lincoln’s childhood—a format that makes it very obvious to the reader that some of the details of the story have been lost to history. It is clear from the Author’s Note that the account is as historically accurate as is possible. Hmmm. I might maybe would have let this one be called a picture book biography. Might. Maybe.

Secondly, about that interesting presentation style. What do you think? Because I just can’t make up my mind. I love that the book makes readers think about history and how it slips away. I love how the author uses the format to both show and tell. And I think books that address the reader have an energy that is hard to achieve when that pesky fourth wall is intact. And yet … I found myself wondering if the style got in the way of the story.

Lastly, my favorite line:

“Remember Austin Gollaher, because what we do matters, even if we don’t end up in history books.”

It’s an especially great line, I think, when you read it in the context of the rest of the book; here, alone on the page like that, it doesn’t work as well. (Which, in itself, speaks again to the power of the author’s unique presentation style.)

Now, who’d like another piece of chocolate?

BROADSIDES FROM THE OTHER ORDERS, A Book of Bugs
By Sue Hubbell
Random House, 1993

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

I ‘met’ Sue Hubbell when I read A BOOK OF BEES, and was enchanted by both her forthright style and the interesting way she sees the world. So, when I stumbled upon BROADSIDES FROM THE OTHER ORDERS while traipsing around the 595s at the library—in Dewey-speak, that’s the section for bugs—I couldn’t leave without it.

BROADSIDES is creative non-fiction at it’s finest, at least for someone like me who loves to learn about our world through the lives of interesting men and women who are out there observing it closely. Hubbell introduces us to entomologists from all across the country, and she shines as much light on their bugs as she does on their motivation.

If all this wasn’t enough to make me a Sue Hubbell fan, this was:

“I have over the course of a year and three camel-cricket generations learned something about the [crickets] in my terrarium. Each observation, however, has raised more questions than it answers, so the sum of my watching has caused me to grow in ignorance, not knowledge. None of what I have discovered has been published before, so it may be useful to record it here.”

Yep, she studies camel crickets. In her office. On her desk, in fact. And you can read what she has discovered in this enchanting little book of bugs.

THE MOON CAME DOWN ON MILK STREET
By Jean Gralley
Henry Holt, 2004

Category: Picture book

I picked this book up because of this review by Mary Cronin. We New Englanders have been dealing with calamity of our own, in the form of brutal ice and endless snow, and I wondered if this book that Mary spoke of so highly might help us—especially the youngest amongst us—to process this events of the past two weeks.

It will.

I was struck by the simple solace of the book’s frontispiece: “Fred Rogers has said that when he was a child, if he ever came across a car accident or some other terrifying scene, his mother would tell him, ‘Look for the helpers.’” In her book, Jean Gralley builds on this concept and creates a wonderful tribute to helpers everywhere … and the perfect antidote to scary times.

I’ll be using THE MOON CAME DOWN ON MILK STREET next month in Book Bunch, a picture book read-aloud class I run in the After School program here in town each winter. What a wonderful way for the students and I to reflect together on this wild and sometimes scary month.

Thank you Fred Rogers, thank you Jean Gralley, and thank you Mary Cronin!