It's not a room that's seen much use. But the times it has stand up in my memory more than the months and years in between. Most of my life's turning have taken place here.
I recognized the author Paul Fleischman when I saw this book at the thrift store recently. We've enjoyed some of his other books (I recently posted the Birthday Tree) and this one was no exception. It's a slim little volume following the narrator Georgina's life and family in the mid 19th century. It begins with her grandfather coming to the wilderness of Ohio and building the house that was to be her family's homestead. There is one room in particular, the "borning room" where life and death take their place in the procession of family history.
Four small walls, sheathed with pine, painted white. A window. A door onto the kitchen, for warmth. Two chairs. A bed, nearly filling up the room, like a bird held in cupped hands. Standing by the bed, squire beside his knight, a table bearing a Bible and lamp. I'm certain you've stood in many such rooms.
Look out the window. That's a sugar maple. Grandfather greatly cherished that tree....He steered his oxen along the Stillwater, halted them here, and commenced cutting trees as if he were the avenging arm of the Lord. But when he came to that maple, it so put him in mind of New Hampshire, of his mother and father and sisters, all left behind, that he let it stand and decided to build his house beside it, for summer shade. He called it his memory tree.
It's here that Georgina's grandmother and mother and eventually her all take a turn birthing their babies, the view of her grandfather's sugar maple from the window. And it's here that family members gather to say goodby as death takes them.
It may seem like heavy subjects for a children's book, but it's written about in such a natural, beautiful way. We follow Georgina through childhood, having "church" with her grandfather out in the woods and fields...
We moved on, hand in hand, towards the orchard. Grandfather's fingers felt as rough as his staff, which he resembled- long and thin and strong. Passing in among the apple trees, we gravitated toward those in bloom. Grandfather savored all that reached his senses. Unhurriedly, we admired the blossoms' shades, their symmetry, their aromas... Though speaking was frowned upon during these services, the eating of apples, in summer and fall, was not only allowed but encouraged. Grandfather felt a ripe apple was an invitation to know the Creator and his goodness.........
Beyond them flowed the creek, its water high and its voice greatly magnified. Grandfather listened, sniffed, smiled. The world of nature was for him church and congregation and Scripture.
What had I observed? he would ask. What new understandings had those observations brought? What fresh speculations about the universe had been given birth to by those understandings?
Georgina becomes an abolitionist, takes care of her siblings, goes to school, and slowly grows up. Fleischman does an excellent job helping us to experience the small intimate family stories that make up our country's history.
And I particularly loved this beautiful description of family love and heritage....
As a child of five, Grandfather had shaken the hand of the aged Benjamin Franklin and received the great freethinker's blessing. I wondered what hands Franklin had shaken, looked down at Grandfather's fingers in mine, and felt I was reaching back through the centuries. And just as Grandfather had never forgotten his New Hampshire past or his parents' mettle, I promised him I'd preserve his memory. The chain of hands would never be broken.
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