Two books I remember most fondly from my young childhood are:
Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams: This showed me the importance of fighting and resisting political evil.
At the Back of the North Wind by George Macdonald. That put a little light in the back of my mind which sustained me (in my militantly secular humanist culture) for many decades until I became old enough -and had the time - to find it and buy it and read it for myself.
Two books I remember most fondly from my young childhood are:
Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams: This showed me the importance of fighting and resisting political evil.
At the Back of the North Wind by George Macdonald. That put a little light in the back of my mind which sustained me (in my militantly secular humanist culture) for many decades until I became old enough -and had the time - to find it and buy it and read it for myself.
Charlotte’s Web and Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Song for the Children
For all of those who have no voice, the ones who can’t be heard,
Silverstein’s parable isn’t so absurd.
To give and give is seen as good, but that is a mistake.
It’s only that they can’t cry out, that others take and take.
For those voices very weak, who think it is no use,
take heart to hear of Horton who in words from Dr. Seuss,
heard a sound that no one else cared about at all.
Tragic how the larger world ignores the very small.
The mouse’s tale to girl who fell down hole in Caroll’s verse
illustrates how power turns the powerful perverse.
Injustice is not hard to find when left up to the cat,
who both as executioner, and judge and jury sat.
Although they surely share some fault unless they state their claim,
children can’t defend themselves but only take the blame.
So many Oompa-Loompas sing of fixes far far worse
for children than the tortures found In Roald Dahl’s verse.
I cannot speak for those unheard or form for them their pleas,
but even if I cannot hear let me be one who sees.
Like these friends who understood and wrote beloved songs,
Let me find the words to say so all can sing along.
Secret Door
Lean against the basement wall just so
and click, a door opens
up a secret room, like Lucy
entering through the wardrobe
into another world.
Lined along those shelves
are lands vast and uncharted
seas unsailed, planets, desert islands,
all my father’s boyhood odysseys
beckoning me to join their quest.
Upstairs Granddad puffs
Prince Albert rings above one end of the couch
as Winnie squeezes burnt sienna out of a tube
adding autumn to a pallet
offset by his handmade Manzanita frames.
Outside, the woods repeats the call
to explore, find morel mushrooms, pine cones,
deer droppings, track down
that bear that tipped over the dumpster
down by the chicken coop last winter.
Black, elder, boysen, huckle ––
berries growing in the garden
make their way into jams and pies
and through another secret door,
a still for making wine.
Too young for even a sip
my trips there were spent
intoxicated with adventure
carried away like some Jane
swung along jungle vines.