Opal Whiteley
Paperback | Pages: 384 pages Rating: 4.24 | 791 Users | 145 Reviews
Itemize Books In Pursuance Of The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow
| Original Title: | The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley |
| ISBN: | 0140237208 (ISBN13: 9780140237207) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Oregon(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | American Book Award (1988) |
Narrative Concering Books The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow
Long before environmental consciousness became popular, a young nature writer named Opal Whiteley captured America's heart. Opal's childhood diary, published in 1902, became an immediate bestseller, one of the most talked-about books of its time. Wistful, funny, and wise, it was described by an admirer as "the revelation of the ...life of a feminine Peter Pan of the Oregon wilderness—so innocent, so intimate, so haunting, that I should not know where in all literature to look for a counterpart."But the diary soon fell into disgrace. Condemning it as an adult-written hoax, skeptics stirred a scandal that drove the book into obscurity and shattered the frail spirit of its author.Discovering the diary by chance, bestselling author Benjamin Hoff set out to solve the longstanding mystery of its origin. His biography of Opal that accompanies the diary provides fascinating proof that the document is indeed authentic—the work of a magically gifted child, America's forgotten interpreter of nature.
Particularize Regarding Books The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow
| Title | : | The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow |
| Author | : | Opal Whiteley |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 384 pages |
| Published | : | February 1st 1995 by Penguin Books (first published January 1st 1976) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Biography. Autobiography. Memoir. Environment. Nature. Biography Memoir |
Rating Regarding Books The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow
Ratings: 4.24 From 791 Users | 145 ReviewsAssess Regarding Books The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow
I feel like I should preface this review with a line of a poem that I adored in my childhood:If you are a dreamer,come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!-Shel SilversteinOpal Whiteley was a remarkable child. Her turn-of-the-century diary was printed onto scraps of paper, wrappings and discards, scratched out with colored pencils and crayons atOpal Whiteley, born in 1897 in the USA, wrote an extraordinary book and was at the heart of an unsolved mystery. Writer Melanie McFadyean explores Whiteley's childhood in an Oregon lumber village and her rise to fame in America, her exotic adventures and many years in British asylum, where she died in 1992. Her gravestone in Highgate Cemetery bears the inscription 'I spake as a child.'Did she speak as a child or was her diary, said to have been written by her aged six or seven, and published in
I must be turning into a sentimental old fool, given how much I enjoyed reading this sweet and affecting journal of a little girl in love with the natural world in the backwoods of 1900s Oregon. I ran across this after reading the children's illustrated version Just Opal and wanting to see more of the original journal.Equally intriguing is Opal Whiteley's further story -- the 100-year debate over the authenticity of her journal as a contemporaneous childhood record, over her own ancestry, and
This is Oregon when it was still rural west of the Cascades. A beautifully complex and exquisitely sensitive woman wrote this book as a very young person. The "Mystical Diary of Opal Whitely" is tragedy wrapped in child comedy where a mother pig is named Aphrodite and a fir tree in the lane is named Byron. Delightful and heart breaking in equal parts. A must read for anyone who loves language and poetry and the natural world.
Very sweet reprinting of a diary by a little girl at the turn of the 20th century in Oregon. It's not well-known because of the controversy that surrounded Opal Whiteley. After the original printing of this diary people decided the writing was far too advanced for a 6 year old to have written and that she must have written it when she was in her twenties, causing a media frenzy and popular opinion to turn sour towards her- her diary to go out of print within a year and swiftly swept under the
This is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Opal Whitely's childhood diary is not only a window into childhood, but a burgeoning lyrical-naturalist-mystic. Written with crayon and pencil on paper bags and old envelope Opal tells stories of her 1910's Oregon logging camp life, especially her animal friends like herding dog Brave Horatius, her pig Peter Paul Rubens, and draft horse William Shakespeare. Her uncommon writing style's simplicity makes her observations even more
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