MATTHEW'S MEADOW by Corinne Demas Bliss,
with illustrations by Ted Lewin
Published by Voyager Books/Harcourt Brace & Co.

My selections typically don't come from the realm of children's books, but this is one for which I must make an exception. I found it in a nature center bookshop early in the summer, and I've kept it near at hand ever since. Written for the author's son when he was ten, it's the story of a boy whose favorite place to spend time alone was a meadow near his home. He shared it with no one but deer and a red-tailed hawk and thought of it as his own. Every year, as he moved into and through adolescence, the boy learned from the hawk - who could speak - how to hone each of his five senses. At sixteen, the hawk said she would not see him again for ten years, and in that time she told him to learn to "think beyond your thoughts, so that you can find a way to do what you once thought impossible."

Matthew's Meadow would be a thoughtful and inspiring gift for a birthday or graduation or any coming-of-age celebration, but its appeal definitely is not limited to children. Ted Lewin's illustrations perfectly complement the text. It's a beautiful book. For more information about the author and her works, go to corinnedemas.com.

OUT OF THIS WORLD: A JOURNEY OF HEALING
by Mary Swander
Published by Penguin Books

When Mary Swander's health was devastated by environmental illness, severe isolation became her lifeline. Unable to eat but a very few foods, to wear the same fabrics or even breathe the same air as the rest of the population, she found herself moving into a former one-room schoolhouse in Iowa's Amish country to grow her own food and slowly find her way back to health. Eight years passed before she sat down to dinner with her Amish neighbors, the first entire meal she'd taken with others in all that time. In an existence pared down to essentials, she rediscovered the virtues of simplicity and life on the land, the spiritual lessons of another way of living on the edge.

From Out of This World: "If I stay in my house, safe and sequestered away from the larger world, I can 'forget' I am disabled. Oh, you never truly forget. My daily routine completely revolves around my physical problems.... But in this world of difference, my routine now seems so normal that I can become lulled into complacency. Whole days go by when I'm not even thinking 'disability'. Yet one snag, one canceled bus ride is all it takes to confront myself again. And these confrontations always toss out that same question, that same frayed rope: Hold on? Let go?"

Other books by Mary Swander:

THE DESERT PILGRIM: EN ROUTE TO MYSTICISM AND MIRACLES

PARSNIPS IN THE SNOW: TALKS WITH MIDWESTERN GARDENERS (ed., with Jane Anne Staw)

(Most of Swander's poetry is out-of-print but still available)

PEACE PILGRIM: HER LIFE AND WORKS IN HER OWN WORDS
published by Ocean Tree Books, Santa Fe NM

From 1953 to 1981, a woman who had given up her so-called normal, middle-class life for an extraordinary commitment to peace journeyed on foot over more than 25,000 miles throughout America. She wore a simple blue tunic with the words "Peace Pilgrim" printed on it and carried her few possessions in its pockets. She had no organizational backing for her pilgrimage and gave away what money was donated to her. Arrested on vagrancy charges a number of times, she made each into an opportunity to spread her teachings and promote understanding. Those who initially distrusted her intentions, suspected her of being a Communist, or dismissed her as a crackpot often came to be profoundly inspired by her simple, cheerful presence, her message about the nature of peace, and her remarkable lifestyle. She did not write this autobiography; her friends put her experiences and her words into book form. In times when war and terrorism threaten the world, these words can both comfort and move us to look within for the true source of peace.

From the Introduction: "The simple yet profound message of Peace Pilgrim's life and words is urgently needed in humankind's search for peace. She has given us renewed hope in the future of this world - hope that enough might gain inner peace to make world peace possible. She has given us an example of a person who lived in inner peace and was filled with a boundless energy that grew rather than diminished with age."

Visit www.peacepilgrim.net for more information.

THE FORCE OF SPIRIT, essays by Scott Russell Sanders
published by Beacon Press, Boston MA

Scott Russell Sanders is one of my favorite essayists. Period. I find all of his writing terribly affecting, but never more so than when he writes of his father. Although evocations of Sanders' late father are to be found throughout the book, one chapter is addressed directly to him as if a letter. The legacy of pain and wondrous good they share join familiar father-son conflicts at the heart of this complex love.

From "Father Within": " 'A pacifist?' you growled when I told you of my decision. 'Where'd you learn to be a pacifist?'

I learned it from you, indirectly, because you taught me to search my conscience before I acted, and to stick by what I found there, no matter what other folks urged me to do. Like most of the standards I inherited from you, that one is too hard for me some of the time. Yet even when I ignore my conscience, I usually know what it's saying, and what you would say: 'Why do you think the Lord gave us a backbone? To hold up a hat?' "

Other books by Scott Russell Sanders:

THE PARADISE OF BOMBS
SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE
HUNTING FOR HOPE
STAYING PUT
THE COUNTRY OF LANGUAGE

Yours for good reading,

Christine