"Do something to make the world more beautiful."
Once upon a time a little girl named Alice lived in a city by the sea. Her grandfather had come to America on a large sailing ship. He found a job making figureheads for ships and carving Indians for the front of cigar stores. Alice listens to her grandfather's stories and decides she too will travel around the world one day and then eventually come home and live in a cottage by the sea. Her grandfather agrees this will be a fine thing to do but he also gives her the advice above. (Listen here)
Alice does grow up and eventually works in a library in another city but she keeps reading about faraway places. Finally Alice, now called Miss Rumphius, is able to travel. She goes to topical islands, snow covered mountains, jungles and deserts. After a small accident Miss Rumphius returns home to a cottage by the sea. She is happy and does recover but what about that promise to her grandfather? She plants a few seeds in her garden not knowing that this will lead her to the answer. The flowers are lupines and the seeds have blown across the nearby hill. Alice sends for more seeds and she scatters them everywhere.
"The next spring there were lupines everywhere. Fields and hillsides were covered with blue and purple and rose-coloured flowers. They bloomed along the highways and down the lanes. Bright patches lay around the schoolhouse and back of the church."
Miss Rumphius completed her promise.
This is one of those classic American stories that many people will be familiar with. I am sure you will easily find a copy in most libraries. Mine came from a recent charity book sale and this copy has perhaps lingered on a bookshelf in a home for many years because this 1982 picture book is in mint condition and the dust jacket in completely intact which is rare. This edition is still available for over AUS$37 (I paid AUS1.50 at the book fair). Take a look inside Miss Rumphius.
Here is the cover of the paperback which I did have in my former school library:
Bookseller blurb: When Miss Rumphius was little, she would sit on her grandfather's lap and listen to his stories of faraway places-and she would say "When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea." However, her grandfather gives her a third charge-to do something that makes the world more beautiful. And Alice grows up to do just that. She takes a job as a librarian far away from the salt air, travels to distant locations, and moves back by the sea. However, she knows she must still do something to make the world more beautiful. After watching the Lupines grow by her house, she has a wonderful idea.
One reviewer said: A picture book full of meaning, the gorgeous paintings capture the very essence of New England by the sea and the many stops of her life along the way.
Here are some things I discovered about Miss Rumphius:
- Miss Rumphius was inspired by a real-life "Lupine Lady," Hilda Hamlin, who spread lupine seeds along the Maine coast, as well as Cooney's own experiences traveling the world.
- In 2012, it was ranked number 13 among the "Top 100 Picture Books" in a survey published by the School Library Journal.
- The book was made into a short film by Western Wood (16 minutes) in 2000.
- The Lupine Award of the Maine Library Association is named in honor of the book as is the New Jersey Center for the Book's Miss Rumphius Award given to librarians and teachers who develop creative activities to support literacy education.
- The book itself is dedicated with a small illustrated icon to Saint Nicholas, who is the patron saint of children, sailors, and maidens (or unmarried persons).
- Many of Miss Rumphius' journeys were inspired by Barbara Cooney's own experiences traveling around the world.
- The art for Miss Rumphius has a permanent home in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
- Barbara Coney was born in 1917 and died in 2000 aged 82. Her first book was published in 1940, and her 110th book, Basket Moon, was published in September of 1999.
- Miss Cooney twice won the prestigious Caldecott Medal given by the American Library Association for Best Illustrated Book of the Year, first for her retelling of Chaucer's Chanticleer and the Fox, and second, for Ox-cart Man, written by famed New England poet Donald Hall.
- Barbara Cooney was honored as the official United States Nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal
- "Of all the books I have done," she says, "Miss Rumphius (Viking, 1982), Island Boy (Viking, 1988), and Hattie and the Wild Waves (Viking, 1990), are the closest to my heart. These three are as near as I ever will come to an autobiography."
Companion books:
