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The Story of Opal / The Journal of an Understanding Heart by Opal Whiteley
For those whom Nature loves, the Story of Opal is an open book. They need no introduction to the journal of this Understanding Heart. But the world, which veils the spirit and callouses the instincts, makes curiosity for most people the criterion of interest. They demand facts and backgrounds, theories and explanations, and for them it seems worth while to set forth something of the child’s story undisclosed by the diary, and to attempt to weave together some impressions of the author.
Last September, late one afternoon, Opal Whiteley came into the Atlantic’s office, with a book which she had had printed in Los Angeles. It was not a promising errand, though it had brought her all the way from the Western coast, hoping to have published in regular fashion this volume, half fact, half fancy, of The Fairyland Around Us, the fairyland of beasts and blossoms, butterflies and birds. The book was quaintly embellished with colored pictures, pasted in by hand, and bore a hundred marks of special loving care. Yet about it there seemed little at first sight to tempt a publisher. Indeed, she had offered her wares in vain to more than one publishing house; and as her dollars were growing very few, the disappointment was severe. But about Opal Whiteley herself there was something to attract the attention even of a man of business—something very young and eager and fluttering, like a bird in a thicket.
The talk went as follows:—
“I am afraid we can’t do anything with the book. But you must have had an interesting life. You have lived much in the woods?”
“Yes, in lots of lumber-camps.”
CONTENTS
How Opal Goes along the Road beyond the Singing Creek, and of all she Sees in her New Home
How Lars Porsena of Clusium Got Opal into Trouble, and how Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael and Sadie McKibben Gave her Great Comfort
Of the Queer Feels that Came out of a Bottle of Castoria, and of the Happiness of Larry and Jean
How Peter Paul Rubens Goes to School
How Opal Comforted Aphrodite, and how the Fairies Comforted Opal when there Was Much Sadness at School
Opal Gives Wisdom to the Potatoes, Cleanliness to the Family Clothes, and a Delicate Dinner to Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus
The Adventure of the Tramper; and what Happens on Long and on Short Days
How Opal Takes a Walk in the Forest of Chantilly; she Visits Elsie and her Baby Boy, and Explains Many Things to the Girl that Has no Seeing
Of an Exploring Trip with Brave Horatius; and how Opal Kept Sadness away from her Animal Friends
How Brave Horatius is Lost and Found again, but Peter Paul Rubens is Lost Forever
How Opal Took the Miller’s Brand out of the Flour-Sack, and Got Many Sore Feels thereby; and how Sparks Come on Cold Nights; and how William Shakespeare Has Likings for Poems
Of Elsie’s Brand-New Baby, and all the Things that Go with it; and the Goodly Wisdom of the Angels, who Bring Folks Babies that Are like them
How Felix Mendelssohn and Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil Go for a Ride; William Shakespeare Suffers One Whipping and Opal Another
How Opal Feels Satisfaction Feels, and Takes a Ride on William Shakespeare; and all that Came of it
Of Jenny Strong’s Visit, its Gladness and its Sadness
Of the Woods on a Lonesome Day, and the Friendliness of the Wood-Folks on December Days when you Put your Ears Close and Listen
Of Works to be Done; and how it Was that a Glad Light Came into the Eyes of the Man who Wears Gray Neckties and Is Kind to Mice
How Opal Pays One Visit to Elsie and Another to Dear Love, and Learns how to Mend her Clothes in a Quick Way
Of the Camp by the Mill by the Far Woods; of the Spanking that Came from the New Way of Mending Clothes; and of the Long Sleep of William Shak
Last September, late one afternoon, Opal Whiteley came into the Atlantic’s office, with a book which she had had printed in Los Angeles. It was not a promising errand, though it had brought her all the way from the Western coast, hoping to have published in regular fashion this volume, half fact, half fancy, of The Fairyland Around Us, the fairyland of beasts and blossoms, butterflies and birds. The book was quaintly embellished with colored pictures, pasted in by hand, and bore a hundred marks of special loving care. Yet about it there seemed little at first sight to tempt a publisher. Indeed, she had offered her wares in vain to more than one publishing house; and as her dollars were growing very few, the disappointment was severe. But about Opal Whiteley herself there was something to attract the attention even of a man of business—something very young and eager and fluttering, like a bird in a thicket.
The talk went as follows:—
“I am afraid we can’t do anything with the book. But you must have had an interesting life. You have lived much in the woods?”
“Yes, in lots of lumber-camps.”
CONTENTS
How Opal Goes along the Road beyond the Singing Creek, and of all she Sees in her New Home
How Lars Porsena of Clusium Got Opal into Trouble, and how Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael and Sadie McKibben Gave her Great Comfort
Of the Queer Feels that Came out of a Bottle of Castoria, and of the Happiness of Larry and Jean
How Peter Paul Rubens Goes to School
How Opal Comforted Aphrodite, and how the Fairies Comforted Opal when there Was Much Sadness at School
Opal Gives Wisdom to the Potatoes, Cleanliness to the Family Clothes, and a Delicate Dinner to Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus
The Adventure of the Tramper; and what Happens on Long and on Short Days
How Opal Takes a Walk in the Forest of Chantilly; she Visits Elsie and her Baby Boy, and Explains Many Things to the Girl that Has no Seeing
Of an Exploring Trip with Brave Horatius; and how Opal Kept Sadness away from her Animal Friends
How Brave Horatius is Lost and Found again, but Peter Paul Rubens is Lost Forever
How Opal Took the Miller’s Brand out of the Flour-Sack, and Got Many Sore Feels thereby; and how Sparks Come on Cold Nights; and how William Shakespeare Has Likings for Poems
Of Elsie’s Brand-New Baby, and all the Things that Go with it; and the Goodly Wisdom of the Angels, who Bring Folks Babies that Are like them
How Felix Mendelssohn and Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil Go for a Ride; William Shakespeare Suffers One Whipping and Opal Another
How Opal Feels Satisfaction Feels, and Takes a Ride on William Shakespeare; and all that Came of it
Of Jenny Strong’s Visit, its Gladness and its Sadness
Of the Woods on a Lonesome Day, and the Friendliness of the Wood-Folks on December Days when you Put your Ears Close and Listen
Of Works to be Done; and how it Was that a Glad Light Came into the Eyes of the Man who Wears Gray Neckties and Is Kind to Mice
How Opal Pays One Visit to Elsie and Another to Dear Love, and Learns how to Mend her Clothes in a Quick Way
Of the Camp by the Mill by the Far Woods; of the Spanking that Came from the New Way of Mending Clothes; and of the Long Sleep of William Shak
185 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 175 reviews
October 22, 2021
who was Opal Whiteley? child prodigy, mystical nature writer, charlatan, illegitimate daughter of the Prince of Orleans, misunderstood child in turn-of-the-century Washington state, dangerous guy-magnet in colonial India, mentally unbalanced ward of an English institution, victim, or visionary? who knows. it's a mystery!
so is this Diary. written - perhaps - by a wiser-than-her-years and rather disturbed 16-year old, the story of this young lady's life in nature and with her adopted family contains many moments that charm (animals given disconcertingly adult names) and that impress (her intimate connection with nature). it also gave me the creeps, eventually. some of the strange names she chose, the often infantile perspective, her extremely literal interpretation of words and events... what started off as, by turns, resonant and amusing and a little heartwarming, a little heartbreaking, became... less so. and then, slowly but surely, almost unbearably odd. there is such an eeriness to the voice. overall, the Diary is certainly a kind of oddball achievement.
who cares if this was written by a slightly demented natural in the rural States or a more sophisticated, poverty-sticken American expat in Britain? whatever its origin, it is bizarre and unique and strangely moving.
so is this Diary. written - perhaps - by a wiser-than-her-years and rather disturbed 16-year old, the story of this young lady's life in nature and with her adopted family contains many moments that charm (animals given disconcertingly adult names) and that impress (her intimate connection with nature). it also gave me the creeps, eventually. some of the strange names she chose, the often infantile perspective, her extremely literal interpretation of words and events... what started off as, by turns, resonant and amusing and a little heartwarming, a little heartbreaking, became... less so. and then, slowly but surely, almost unbearably odd. there is such an eeriness to the voice. overall, the Diary is certainly a kind of oddball achievement.
who cares if this was written by a slightly demented natural in the rural States or a more sophisticated, poverty-sticken American expat in Britain? whatever its origin, it is bizarre and unique and strangely moving.
January 28, 2016
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 Silverstein
Opal 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 at the age of seven. Her biography (written by Benjamin Hoff, the author of the Toa of Pooh) details Opal's life, beginning with her early childhood in the woods of Oregon, near a logging community. She was an avid naturalist from an early age and went on to spend much of her early adulthood teaching about nature and science to young children.
At some point, however, certain people spread rumors discrediting her diary - claiming it was written when she was an adult, saying that someone so young couldn't possibly have written with such intensity and intelligence. Hoff, obviously, feels very strongly that the diary is authentic and goes to great lengths in the biography to provide evidence to back up his stance. And for me, reading the diary, I couldn't help but believe it was the work of a highly literary and insightful child. There's too much raw belief to think otherwise.
As for the diary itself, it's a place where people who are willing to heed Shel Silverstien's advice should tarry. Opal Whiteley isn't just a dreamer, she's a fairy, a woodland creature - Mother Nature embodied in a wild child who is so at one with the earth and its creatures that she can actually feel their pain. She writes of her conversations with the trees, the joy that the wind and the rain sing to her and each of her dozens of animal friends have long and illustrious names. She has crazy notions about helping her mother and is so innocent and yet grave about the way she wants to do right by the people she loves that it is sometimes painful. She describes this early Oregon landscape and some of its inhabitants (both human and otherwise) with a stark and loving richness.
Because of her father's French-Canadian heritage (they think), she writes with a strange sort of translated syntax which drove my husband crazy when I read it out loud, but which I found enchanting. It made her ideas and "thinks" so much more ethereal:
"By-and-by I came to a log. It was a nice little log. It was as long as three pigs as long as Peter Paul Rubens. I climbed upon it. I so did to look more looks about. The wind did blow in a real quick way-he made music all around. I danced on the log. It is so much a big amount of joy to dance on a log when the wind does play the harps in the forest. Then I do dance on tiptoe."
and
"I think it is very nice to help people have what they do have longings for."
Opal is always grateful, full of joy, trying to understand. She learns deep lessons about life and death (or bornings and goings-away, as she calls them). Her interactions with her mother were harsh and unfortunately littered with bouts of corporeal punishment, and reading them from Opal's point of view was sometimes heartbreaking. It made me want to just hug that girl and take her for a walk, but luckily she had many kindly neighbors, cows, dogs, frogs, crows, wood rats, chickens and horses to keep her company. Her fresh and unadulterated love of the earth, her recognition of the healing that comes from being outside among the animals and trees, her faith in fairies and God and angels - this unique perspective painted the entire diary with an unmistakable swash of joie de vivre.
If you are not one of those dreamers, if you don't every once and a while strain to hear the voice of the wind in the trees, this book may be a bit too sentimental for you. Her fondness for naming every single creature she befriends might tire you. Her precociousness might just make you thank the heavens that you weren't her mother. But for me, Opal's diary opened my eyes to a life of at-one-ness that made me want to laugh for joy and reminded me that, as Opal says, "this is a wonderful world to live in."
“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 Silverstein
Opal 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 at the age of seven. Her biography (written by Benjamin Hoff, the author of the Toa of Pooh) details Opal's life, beginning with her early childhood in the woods of Oregon, near a logging community. She was an avid naturalist from an early age and went on to spend much of her early adulthood teaching about nature and science to young children.
At some point, however, certain people spread rumors discrediting her diary - claiming it was written when she was an adult, saying that someone so young couldn't possibly have written with such intensity and intelligence. Hoff, obviously, feels very strongly that the diary is authentic and goes to great lengths in the biography to provide evidence to back up his stance. And for me, reading the diary, I couldn't help but believe it was the work of a highly literary and insightful child. There's too much raw belief to think otherwise.
As for the diary itself, it's a place where people who are willing to heed Shel Silverstien's advice should tarry. Opal Whiteley isn't just a dreamer, she's a fairy, a woodland creature - Mother Nature embodied in a wild child who is so at one with the earth and its creatures that she can actually feel their pain. She writes of her conversations with the trees, the joy that the wind and the rain sing to her and each of her dozens of animal friends have long and illustrious names. She has crazy notions about helping her mother and is so innocent and yet grave about the way she wants to do right by the people she loves that it is sometimes painful. She describes this early Oregon landscape and some of its inhabitants (both human and otherwise) with a stark and loving richness.
Because of her father's French-Canadian heritage (they think), she writes with a strange sort of translated syntax which drove my husband crazy when I read it out loud, but which I found enchanting. It made her ideas and "thinks" so much more ethereal:
"By-and-by I came to a log. It was a nice little log. It was as long as three pigs as long as Peter Paul Rubens. I climbed upon it. I so did to look more looks about. The wind did blow in a real quick way-he made music all around. I danced on the log. It is so much a big amount of joy to dance on a log when the wind does play the harps in the forest. Then I do dance on tiptoe."
and
"I think it is very nice to help people have what they do have longings for."
Opal is always grateful, full of joy, trying to understand. She learns deep lessons about life and death (or bornings and goings-away, as she calls them). Her interactions with her mother were harsh and unfortunately littered with bouts of corporeal punishment, and reading them from Opal's point of view was sometimes heartbreaking. It made me want to just hug that girl and take her for a walk, but luckily she had many kindly neighbors, cows, dogs, frogs, crows, wood rats, chickens and horses to keep her company. Her fresh and unadulterated love of the earth, her recognition of the healing that comes from being outside among the animals and trees, her faith in fairies and God and angels - this unique perspective painted the entire diary with an unmistakable swash of joie de vivre.
If you are not one of those dreamers, if you don't every once and a while strain to hear the voice of the wind in the trees, this book may be a bit too sentimental for you. Her fondness for naming every single creature she befriends might tire you. Her precociousness might just make you thank the heavens that you weren't her mother. But for me, Opal's diary opened my eyes to a life of at-one-ness that made me want to laugh for joy and reminded me that, as Opal says, "this is a wonderful world to live in."
March 12, 2008
This isn't actually the edition I read: I found a hardcover edition sometime around 1987, published in Palo Alto, I think, likewise edited by Jane Boulton [which is why I chose this one for my review], that had at the end a summary of Opal's history and the piecing-together of the diary at Mr. Sedgewick's home. I read it to my daughter at a girl-scout overnight, and when I looked up there were 20 girls sitting around us listening intently. It was truly enchanting, and I still find myself using her phraseology at times, which takes me immediately into a different space in the world than current reality, which certainly leaves a lot to be desired!
July 20, 2013
I give thanks to Benjamin Hoff for his sympathetic presentation (and resurrection) of Opal's seven year old heart's masterpiece. I find myself thinking thinks of Opal. I wish she had been my child. The world can be so harsh and cold. The born mystics need sympathy, understanding hearts and care. They have much to show us of the invisible world. Peace Opal Whiteley, wherever you may be.
March 20, 2008
Don't let your sister find your diary.
October 8, 2014
Beautiful and heartbreaking. It also contains what is possibly some of the purest mystical and naive nature poetry focussed through a child's eyes around.
The nature diary is the beautiful part.
The biography of Opal Whitely also included is the heartbreaking part.
The nature diary is the beautiful part.
The biography of Opal Whitely also included is the heartbreaking part.
March 3, 2011
I read this book, it made me think big thinks. I looked looks on the internet to screw tin eyes the mystery of Opal and decided that I don't care. Fake or real, its still a good book. I have passed this book on to many friends, who have grunted grunts of Amen.
That is my best Opal impression :)
That is my best Opal impression :)
March 6, 2014
Opal 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 1920, a hoax? Entitled The Story of Opal: The Journey of an Understanding Heart, it was an instant bestseller. But then people began to wonder. A gifted amateur naturalist, Opal visited the offices of the periodical Atlantic Monthly, where publisher Ellery Sedgewick asked her if she had ever kept a diary. Opal said an early diary existed, but it had been ripped to pieces by a jealous sister. She had, however, kept the pieces in a hat box. Sedgewick sent for the boxful of fragments and set Opal to work, piecing them together. The task took her nine months. Photographs of the mended manuscript, 150,000 words long, reveal that it was written in crayon, in capital letters, on any paper she could get, even paper bags.
But the diary is too complex to be the work of a young child. Threaded through it are concealed acrostics and oddly-detailed references to French royalty, including dates of birth, place names and historical anecdotes. In her introduction Opal claimed she had been adopted by the lumberjack family, the Whiteleys, after her mother had drowned, that her real name was Francoise D'Orleans, and that her real father was Duc Henri, Prince d'Orleans. The Orleans family always denied she was genuinely related, the Whiteleys were devastated that she rejected them and, hounded by the press, changed their names and went to ground. Opal Whitely left the USA in the early 1920s, never to return. She trailed chaos in her wake, but she had charisma and charmed rich and influential people.
During the Second World War, Opal lived in a London flat, along with thousands of books. But her mental condition deteriorated and she was placed in Napsbury Hospital, near St Albans, in 1948, where she spent the next 44 years until her death in 1992. We hear from people who met her and knew her, hear extracts from the diary, and musical clips from a recent musical about her life.
Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 4, 11:30am Tuesday 5th January 2010
Duration:
30 minutes
Available until:
12:02pm Tuesday 12th January 2010
Categories:
Factual, Life Stories
WOW!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 1, 2010
The real diary of an unusual and gifted five-year-old living in an Oregon lumber camp in the early 1900s. Her diary was "adapted" by Jane Boulton, but I'm not sure exactly what this "adaptation" consisted of. Boulton says she broke the prose down into free verse, but what else did she do? In any case, this is a fascinating diary and the story behind it is fascinating as well. Opal lived in an unhappy home with an abusive foster mother, and her comfort and escape was in nature. She had many animal friends and gave them names like Felix Mendelssohn and Horatius, and wrote a great deal about her adventures with the animals.
No one's really sure who Opal really was or where she came from. She certainly was not an ordinary Oregon lumber camps child. Both her parents died when she was a toddler, and no one knows who they were, but Opal writes in the diary in French and displays great familiarity with classical history and literature and with the Roman Catholic Church. The afterword argues that she may well have been the daughter of Henri, Duc d'Orleans, one of the last members of the French royal family.
Opal reminds me a lot of how Anne of Green Gables would have been before she moved in with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. Both child and adult readers can appreciate this diary and its unique voice.
No one's really sure who Opal really was or where she came from. She certainly was not an ordinary Oregon lumber camps child. Both her parents died when she was a toddler, and no one knows who they were, but Opal writes in the diary in French and displays great familiarity with classical history and literature and with the Roman Catholic Church. The afterword argues that she may well have been the daughter of Henri, Duc d'Orleans, one of the last members of the French royal family.
Opal reminds me a lot of how Anne of Green Gables would have been before she moved in with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. Both child and adult readers can appreciate this diary and its unique voice.
March 3, 2019
Precocious Opal and her lyrical manner of speech will steal your heart away and transport you to the green lush forests of Opal's simple world. Her language and descriptions are other-worldly - as if she speaks "in translation" from her unfettered mind to the written page. I rank this as one of the most moving reads of my life. I believe that the version I read was adapted by Jane Boulton, but the Gutenberg Press has the original version, along with the editor's preface and a picture of the author - under the title: The Story of Opal: The journey of an Understanding Heart. (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43818)
No description of this book will ever do it justice. Just read it - it is sheer lilting poetry in prose form.
No description of this book will ever do it justice. Just read it - it is sheer lilting poetry in prose form.
July 17, 2008
"One must leave an eye on every piece of potato one plants...it can't see how to grow without its eye...") and "I have longings for more eyes-there is much to see in this world all about. Every day, I do see beautiful things, everywhere I go."
A fairy wreath of jasmine.
Butterflies land on my finger like a little perch of twiggy legs.
I crawled into this book like a fortress made of ferns. Like the nature area I played in as a child where I sang songs to the bugs & animals & pet snakes, frogs & baby gator.
This is where I sprouted from.
A fairy wreath of jasmine.
Butterflies land on my finger like a little perch of twiggy legs.
I crawled into this book like a fortress made of ferns. Like the nature area I played in as a child where I sang songs to the bugs & animals & pet snakes, frogs & baby gator.
This is where I sprouted from.
September 18, 2023
Yep, five stars! I am in awe of this little child and I am intrigued by the mystery of her true history. I tend to believe that she is of royal birth. This journal is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read and I am quite grateful to Jane Boulton for her adaptation. She has taken most of Opal's journal entries and presented them in poetic form. And that is a perfect adaptation for these beautiful words. Opal has a connection to nature that is truly a spiritual gift. And the command of language (two languages really) in this 5 or 6 year old is stunning. Not to mention her grasp of what truly matters. Consider this passage in the journal:
"This day - it was a lonely day.
I did have longings for its hours
for Angel Mother and Angel Father.
Many times in the grey-light-time
I go on searches for the kisses of Angel Father.
The glad song in my heart is not bright today.
I have thinks as how
I can bring happiness to folks about.
That is such a help when lonesome feels do come."
See? Many adults have not figured out this truth but Opal understands how to deal with the blues. Here are a few other beautiful passages that I loved.
"While I was coming home I saw a grey board.
I did turn it over.
Under the board were five silk bags.
They were white
and they did feel lumps.
I know baby spiders will come out of them
when spring days come
because last year I found bags like these
and this year in the spring
baby spiders walked out.
They were very fidgety youngsters."
"Angel Mother did say,
'Make earth glad, little one -
that is the way to keep
the glad song ever in your heart.
It must not go out.'"
"I have longings for more eyes.
There is much to see
in this world all about."
"I lay my ear close to the ground
where the grasses grew close together.
I did listen.
There were voices from out the earth
and the things of their saying
were the gladness of growing.
And there was music.
And in the music there was sky-twinkles
and earth-twinkles.
All the grasses growing there
did feel glad feels
from the tips of their green arms
to their toe roots in the ground."
"I felt a big amount of satisfaction.
Some prayers you pray a little while
and answers come.
Some prayers you pray more times
and answers don't come.
I have not knows of why."
"This day - it was a lonely day.
I did have longings for its hours
for Angel Mother and Angel Father.
Many times in the grey-light-time
I go on searches for the kisses of Angel Father.
The glad song in my heart is not bright today.
I have thinks as how
I can bring happiness to folks about.
That is such a help when lonesome feels do come."
See? Many adults have not figured out this truth but Opal understands how to deal with the blues. Here are a few other beautiful passages that I loved.
"While I was coming home I saw a grey board.
I did turn it over.
Under the board were five silk bags.
They were white
and they did feel lumps.
I know baby spiders will come out of them
when spring days come
because last year I found bags like these
and this year in the spring
baby spiders walked out.
They were very fidgety youngsters."
"Angel Mother did say,
'Make earth glad, little one -
that is the way to keep
the glad song ever in your heart.
It must not go out.'"
"I have longings for more eyes.
There is much to see
in this world all about."
"I lay my ear close to the ground
where the grasses grew close together.
I did listen.
There were voices from out the earth
and the things of their saying
were the gladness of growing.
And there was music.
And in the music there was sky-twinkles
and earth-twinkles.
All the grasses growing there
did feel glad feels
from the tips of their green arms
to their toe roots in the ground."
"I felt a big amount of satisfaction.
Some prayers you pray a little while
and answers come.
Some prayers you pray more times
and answers don't come.
I have not knows of why."
August 7, 2017
Awful. If I could give this book no stars, I would.
October 3, 2012
Just happened upon this book in a house we rented in the Hamptons and by page 2, I was already in love with Opal. Opal is a little orphan girl with a big heart and love for all sentient beings. She talks about knowing the languages of shadows that certain flowers use and talking to trees and animals. She cares for her "family" so much -- I cried twice when...well I won't spoil it (but what happens to Lars Poncena). Still, despite her apparent hard life, her indomitable spirit shines through and she never tires of treating others with love and compassion. I guess to a "typical" adult it sounds silly and childish to talk to trees and stuff like that --- but I've recently started doing that again (or at least it feels like I've done it somewhere in the distant past). Opal reminds me that it's not only okay to do so but perhaps even vital in a world where we forget about ourselves as animals and part of a natural world. This book made me think yet again about becoming a biologist of some sort.
Also, I became more curious about her and did some online research about her, her biography is fascinating and makes me want to find out more about her and read more of her work, thoughts, etc.
Also, I became more curious about her and did some online research about her, her biography is fascinating and makes me want to find out more about her and read more of her work, thoughts, etc.
March 9, 2021
This is the diary of Opal Whiteley and was written by her when she was around 6 or 7 years old (1897-1920). She was born in Colton, WA on 12/11/1897 and the family moved to Cottage Grove, OR sometime in 1903. She had a wonderful imagination, loved plants and animals and could quote long bible verses from a very early age. She claimed when she was younger that she was a foundling (having been abandoned by her father Henri d'Orleans who she said was a Prince and a naturalist) and adopted at the age of 5 by the Whiteley family. Sometime between the ages of 5-7 she started keeping a diary of things around her that she loved and took care of each day. This is her diary and in 1920, The Atlantic Monthly printed the first 6 excerpts from her diary. The published it in book form under the title The Story of Opal, Journal of an Understanding Heart. Due to the complexity of her writing the book was touted as a hoax and that there was no way it could have been written by someone so young.
This book is March 2021 selection for my book club...and I absolutely loved it. Hopefully you will too.
This book is March 2021 selection for my book club...and I absolutely loved it. Hopefully you will too.
September 20, 2025
At M's terse and cryptic recommendation I bought this book on-line. It was delivered to work and, as is her habit, when my friend BV saw it asked 'May I read that please?' She is endlessly fascinated by the books I bring to work, and has read many from my library. And since I was at the time busy reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years, I said 'Okay.'
She couldn't put it down, and proceeded to read it twice, back-to-back. It has gone to near the top of her all time favourite books list and BV has read a lot of books.
And, likewise TSCWTWG is now jostling for position in my top 50 books. Hoff's description of finding the lost book in the first place resonated with me because he has described how it is that I have found many of the books that have been most important to me in my life: a serendipity and the a feeling that I can 'hear' them calling out to me to be read. And likewise, I had that feeling when I read M's recommendation, which rarely happens when I get book recommendations from people.
Hoff has created a book of strong contrasts and clashing ambivalent emotions. So strong that they make this a hard book to describe. It begins with his short biography of Whitelely, which is really more a vindication of her having been libelled and dismissed as a fraud than a biography. In doing his research Hoff came to understand that Whitelely had been willfully destroyed by a malevolent press.
Hoff's brief account left me feeling enraged by what is to me an example of a bloodlust and scapegoating by a mob of journalists that collectively decided to suspend their professional and social responsibility in order to demonstrate that they have the power to destroy the life of someone who somehow magically embodied the magical spirit of the earth and life. The near religious zealotry of the defamation against this life-spirit reminded me of something I read in News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness edited by American poet Robert Bly.
She couldn't put it down, and proceeded to read it twice, back-to-back. It has gone to near the top of her all time favourite books list and BV has read a lot of books.
And, likewise TSCWTWG is now jostling for position in my top 50 books. Hoff's description of finding the lost book in the first place resonated with me because he has described how it is that I have found many of the books that have been most important to me in my life: a serendipity and the a feeling that I can 'hear' them calling out to me to be read. And likewise, I had that feeling when I read M's recommendation, which rarely happens when I get book recommendations from people.
Hoff has created a book of strong contrasts and clashing ambivalent emotions. So strong that they make this a hard book to describe. It begins with his short biography of Whitelely, which is really more a vindication of her having been libelled and dismissed as a fraud than a biography. In doing his research Hoff came to understand that Whitelely had been willfully destroyed by a malevolent press.
Hoff's brief account left me feeling enraged by what is to me an example of a bloodlust and scapegoating by a mob of journalists that collectively decided to suspend their professional and social responsibility in order to demonstrate that they have the power to destroy the life of someone who somehow magically embodied the magical spirit of the earth and life. The near religious zealotry of the defamation against this life-spirit reminded me of something I read in News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness edited by American poet Robert Bly.
Both William Blake and Novalis very clearly saw that a key aspect to the empiricist's "truth" was the arbitrary and hypocritical denial of the sensual part of the empirical world. That the empiricists were able to "rationally" assert this denial of life is only marginally less astounding than their being successful in doing it! This was why both Blake and Novalis stressed the sensual in their works — they knew what the empiricists were unconscious of, which is that they had arbitrary accepted Christian notions of the earth and female as vile and devoid of life. Robert Bly cites a blunt, but typical, example of the roots of that empiricism being anchored in conventional Christian Mythology:The French Priest Bossuet, writing at about the same time as Descartes, expressed in this passage one of the more prevalent Christian attitudes towards nature:Whiteley's diary is one of the most spiritual sensual examples of the written word I have ever come across, and I can't help but think that her voice was the voice of capital 'L' Life that an industrialized, greed-biased anti-life society found threatening and needed to crush.May the earth be cursed, may the earth be cursed, a thousand times be cursed because from it that heavy fog and those black vapours continually rise that ascend from the dark passions and hide heaven and its light from us and draw down the lightening of God's justice against the corruption of the human race.It is no wonder that Blake wrote "The Eternal Female groand! it was heard all over the world" or that Novalis wrote "They [the shallow men] have no idea that it is [the Numinous Night] who subtly embraces the breasts of the young girl, and turns her darkened cave into the Garden of Delight, and have no clue that you are the one ... opening the world of delight ... at the edge of the old stories..." (News of the Universe 49).
[Bly continues:] This attitude was acceptable to the Church Fathers and to developing capitalism. When we deny there is consciousness in nature, we also deny consciousness to the worlds we find by going through nature (News of the Universe 9).
Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Novalis' Hymns to the Night are celebrations of all that the empiricists manage to deny in their sensual world, namely the sensual, the feminine, sexuality and the unconscious. That science is puritanical in its structure and actions can be linked straight back to the widespread acceptance of Newton's single vision which is firmly grounded in his Puritan beliefs (from an English Seminar Spring 1999).
And the connection to Blake is, on reflection, quite astounding beyond it coming to me as an out and out surprise. Blake extolled the spirituality of the physical, too. And in deceptively simple writing.
I have seen other reviewers who waffle on Hoff's vindication, perhaps falling back on the 'there's two sides to every story' rationale. But Hoff's attention to detail, combined with my having become more fully aware of the social malevolence of the press, has convinced me of the evil done to Whitelely, and that it was willfully done by an agenda-ed press with the desire to hurt.
However, once you dive into Whiteley's childhood writing, her diary, the charm, the elegance, the detail, the love Whitelely has for nature is astounding. Life is more alive with her writing than I have ever experienced before. And even the word love, which has become overused in our age of Hallmark greeting cards and texting, may not describe the feeling so much as rapture: Whitely was enraptured by nature. Here's a link to couple of pages from the beginning of Chapter 21: Cathedral Service in the Barn; a Lamb for Opal, and a Lily for Peter Paul Reubens. I suspect it will be either something you will love or hate.
March 19, 2024
4.5 🌟 A very important real life story of a highly sensitive, nature lover with a magical spirit.
Opal Whitely deserves more recognition as a nature writer. I can also see a film of docu-series being produced about her life... perhaps that would gain her story more attention these days.
I'm glad i came across this book by total chance and felt a tug to take it home.
To be honest, I skimmed parts of it because the childish phrasing was at times difficult for me to follow, though at times the gears in my mind shifted effortlessly and I was transported to another time and place where Opal was a bright-eyed child who got along intuitively and lovingly with all animals. I also found it depressing to find myself utterly enchanted by Opal's voice and perception of the world then suddenly stuck by this small child speaking matter of factly and frequently about how her mother would whip her because she was speaking to her animal or tree friends again.
I found it easiest to read the introductory biography and the afterward written by Hoff because his admiration and affection for Opal Whitely and her writing were very clear and he included many excerpts from her diary to let her shine.
Opal Whitely deserves more recognition as a nature writer. I can also see a film of docu-series being produced about her life... perhaps that would gain her story more attention these days.
I'm glad i came across this book by total chance and felt a tug to take it home.
To be honest, I skimmed parts of it because the childish phrasing was at times difficult for me to follow, though at times the gears in my mind shifted effortlessly and I was transported to another time and place where Opal was a bright-eyed child who got along intuitively and lovingly with all animals. I also found it depressing to find myself utterly enchanted by Opal's voice and perception of the world then suddenly stuck by this small child speaking matter of factly and frequently about how her mother would whip her because she was speaking to her animal or tree friends again.
I found it easiest to read the introductory biography and the afterward written by Hoff because his admiration and affection for Opal Whitely and her writing were very clear and he included many excerpts from her diary to let her shine.
November 3, 2018
If I had to choose one book in all the world, this would be it. I have read it multiple times and given away at least 2o copies as a gift. Other reviewers have given the details and structure of The Singing Creek Where the Willow Grow here, so I will not repeat those. What I have always longed to do is to defend Opal and her authenticity, argue her critics down, and give The Singing Creek my highest recommendation, as well as to thank Benjamin Huff for completing the whole story of Opal's life. Hers is a heartbreaking story within a story within a story, shimmering with light, ringing with truth, and ultimately wrapped in relentless tragedy.
To me, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow is a gem among all the gems of world literature. It wasn't only The Creek Where the Willows Grow that was singing in the forests of Cottage Grove, Oregon, from 1904-1906. It was Opal's opening soul, springing up from the well of her pure heart, pouring her love for the forest, its trees and its creatures, and recording it all in her diary. The only thing more unassailably true here was her innocence and vulnerability.
The story within the story is the story of her diary. Within that is the diary is the diary itself, which utterly captures the 6-year-old magical child who Opal Whitely was. Writing down her soul with a breathtaking freshness of language, she had my whole body singing, vibrating with joy and recognition like a tuning fork, at nearly every word. Her mystical nature diaries hold the luminous and unique, diamond-lie treasure of direct access to the innocent wonder and tenderness of a pure mind and heart. Opal was a natural mystic. She was a spiritual genius, light years ahead of her time.
Opal's story as she told it rings unmistakably true. Everything about her is understandable in light of what we know today about childhood trauma. She was anything but a liar and fraud. The inner and outer stories fit together like puzzle pieces. In the 1920s and 30s, the world had zero comprehension of an abused child's intense need to take refuge in fantasy. Fantasy is a coping mechanism, one using story to make sense out of and represent the inner landscape The level of investment in the fantasy can vary, increasing exponentially with severe trauma. So does the extent to which the child must make the fantasy real to effectively shield herself from the overwhelming pain involved. Opal's story, her obsession with having 'real' parents who were royal, her insistence that those raising her had adopted her, provided the child she was with a layer of protection and distance from the pain arising from their abuse. These were perfect mythological metaphors, drawn from her deep unconscious and the collective unconscious, to insulate herself from the pain she was experiencing. The royal and adoptive parents spoke to the magnitude to which she felt out of place, a foreigner who did not belong in this family. What child hasn't thought, "They couldn't possibly be my real parents. My real parents would love me. They would never treat me this way"?
Opal lived in a world that new nothing of the the power and function of myth, or of the significance of the many stories of dual parentage running through world mythology. If only she had had a Jungian therapist, her life would have been very different. Jungians understand children create stories to make sense out of their world. And the truth is that all children, at least metaphorically, have dual parentage. We are all children of the Infinite, of Divinity itself. We all come from an inherently higher, noble, royal (Divine) lineage. We are given away, to be raised (we are adopted) by fractured and cloddish, wounded and unseeing human parents who often have no clue of who we really are or of the higher destinies we are called to.
Of course the world decided Opal was a fraud. The world predictably dismissed what it could not being understand in her consciousness and ways of being. It labeled her a liar. It dismissed her as insane rather than as the victim of childhood trauma that she was. It literally shut her up, spit her out, locked her away. It barred the door, so she could never get out. It barred door, too, so that literally no one could ever get in. No one who could understand or relate to her; no one who would soothe her; no one who would see her value. The world left Opal utterly alone with her childhood wounding and trauma, and the smite of its judgment and repudiation. I suspect she was never insane. That she was grossly misunderstood and unfairly labled. Living in a insane asylum during those times, however, would have driven anyone insane. With no outlet for joy, human comfort, or access to anything she loved, But if you ever visited or worked in an insane asylum, as I have, you know they were literally houses of horror, even into the 1970s. After spending 50 years in one, I doubt anyone could maintain any semblance of sanity.
God bless you Opal Whitely. I lived in the woods for a year and let my heart run wild there. I became an adult at play in the forest you loved. I wish we could have walked the Sierra Nevada woods together at night until dawn. You were right. Your true parents, your real parents, were beautiful. They were the essence of nobility and goodness. I am so glad you are no longer locked away and isolated like those princesses of mythology, confined in the tower. May God forgive your blind, ignorant, cruel doctors and the unseeing world you were born into. I bow to the precious light you brought into the world. You will always be a soul-sister to me.
To me, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow is a gem among all the gems of world literature. It wasn't only The Creek Where the Willows Grow that was singing in the forests of Cottage Grove, Oregon, from 1904-1906. It was Opal's opening soul, springing up from the well of her pure heart, pouring her love for the forest, its trees and its creatures, and recording it all in her diary. The only thing more unassailably true here was her innocence and vulnerability.
The story within the story is the story of her diary. Within that is the diary is the diary itself, which utterly captures the 6-year-old magical child who Opal Whitely was. Writing down her soul with a breathtaking freshness of language, she had my whole body singing, vibrating with joy and recognition like a tuning fork, at nearly every word. Her mystical nature diaries hold the luminous and unique, diamond-lie treasure of direct access to the innocent wonder and tenderness of a pure mind and heart. Opal was a natural mystic. She was a spiritual genius, light years ahead of her time.
Opal's story as she told it rings unmistakably true. Everything about her is understandable in light of what we know today about childhood trauma. She was anything but a liar and fraud. The inner and outer stories fit together like puzzle pieces. In the 1920s and 30s, the world had zero comprehension of an abused child's intense need to take refuge in fantasy. Fantasy is a coping mechanism, one using story to make sense out of and represent the inner landscape The level of investment in the fantasy can vary, increasing exponentially with severe trauma. So does the extent to which the child must make the fantasy real to effectively shield herself from the overwhelming pain involved. Opal's story, her obsession with having 'real' parents who were royal, her insistence that those raising her had adopted her, provided the child she was with a layer of protection and distance from the pain arising from their abuse. These were perfect mythological metaphors, drawn from her deep unconscious and the collective unconscious, to insulate herself from the pain she was experiencing. The royal and adoptive parents spoke to the magnitude to which she felt out of place, a foreigner who did not belong in this family. What child hasn't thought, "They couldn't possibly be my real parents. My real parents would love me. They would never treat me this way"?
Opal lived in a world that new nothing of the the power and function of myth, or of the significance of the many stories of dual parentage running through world mythology. If only she had had a Jungian therapist, her life would have been very different. Jungians understand children create stories to make sense out of their world. And the truth is that all children, at least metaphorically, have dual parentage. We are all children of the Infinite, of Divinity itself. We all come from an inherently higher, noble, royal (Divine) lineage. We are given away, to be raised (we are adopted) by fractured and cloddish, wounded and unseeing human parents who often have no clue of who we really are or of the higher destinies we are called to.
Of course the world decided Opal was a fraud. The world predictably dismissed what it could not being understand in her consciousness and ways of being. It labeled her a liar. It dismissed her as insane rather than as the victim of childhood trauma that she was. It literally shut her up, spit her out, locked her away. It barred the door, so she could never get out. It barred door, too, so that literally no one could ever get in. No one who could understand or relate to her; no one who would soothe her; no one who would see her value. The world left Opal utterly alone with her childhood wounding and trauma, and the smite of its judgment and repudiation. I suspect she was never insane. That she was grossly misunderstood and unfairly labled. Living in a insane asylum during those times, however, would have driven anyone insane. With no outlet for joy, human comfort, or access to anything she loved, But if you ever visited or worked in an insane asylum, as I have, you know they were literally houses of horror, even into the 1970s. After spending 50 years in one, I doubt anyone could maintain any semblance of sanity.
God bless you Opal Whitely. I lived in the woods for a year and let my heart run wild there. I became an adult at play in the forest you loved. I wish we could have walked the Sierra Nevada woods together at night until dawn. You were right. Your true parents, your real parents, were beautiful. They were the essence of nobility and goodness. I am so glad you are no longer locked away and isolated like those princesses of mythology, confined in the tower. May God forgive your blind, ignorant, cruel doctors and the unseeing world you were born into. I bow to the precious light you brought into the world. You will always be a soul-sister to me.
October 25, 2020
The description of the story is what drew me in however, I couldn't hold interest no matter how many times I tried to pick up the book and give it another try. I did not finish and today I have realized, that's ok... move on.
April 14, 2025
This book is so sweet and emotional, at least for me. It was like a breath of fresh air to my heart and soul.
September 27, 2018
This is a really magical book to read - the diary and the forward and afterward make you feel like you know Opal Whiteley. It's emotional to read about what her life was like after she wrote this diary as a child, but the diary transports you to a world full of child-like wonder. It really is amazing that Oregon doesn't tout this as one of their state treasures as it describes the magic of the PNW very well. I don't think I will ever be able to find another book quite like this!
January 7, 2018
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 compelling. Everything is alive and in conversation with everything else.
Page 121 while picking potatoes:
"And all the times I was picking up potatoes, I did have conversations with them. Too, I did have thinks of all their growing days their in the ground, all the things they did hear. Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth-songs come up from the ground through the plants; and in all their flowering...they do tell earth-songs to the wind. And the wind in her goings does whisper them to folks to print for other folks, so other folks have knowing of earth's songs.
I have thinks these potatoes growing here did have knowings of star-songs. I have kept watch in the field at night, and I have seen the stars look kindness down upon them...and I have heard the wind ask of them the star-songs the star-gleams did tell in shadows on their leaves..."
Reading this you'd consider that young Opal could have conversed with St Francis or the poet Rumi.
Benjamin Hoff's biography begins the books and explains how the diary was a bestseller and then a newspaperman tried to prove it was not written by a child, but an adult. Hoff proved the authenticity to this reader - both physical evidence and circumstantial - but after reading her diary I thought, "it doesn't matter." His afterward is self-serving and can largely be skipped. Read her bio and the diary.
This is unlike anything I've ever read.
Her uncommon writing style's simplicity makes her observations even more compelling. Everything is alive and in conversation with everything else.
Page 121 while picking potatoes:
"And all the times I was picking up potatoes, I did have conversations with them. Too, I did have thinks of all their growing days their in the ground, all the things they did hear. Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth-songs come up from the ground through the plants; and in all their flowering...they do tell earth-songs to the wind. And the wind in her goings does whisper them to folks to print for other folks, so other folks have knowing of earth's songs.
I have thinks these potatoes growing here did have knowings of star-songs. I have kept watch in the field at night, and I have seen the stars look kindness down upon them...and I have heard the wind ask of them the star-songs the star-gleams did tell in shadows on their leaves..."
Reading this you'd consider that young Opal could have conversed with St Francis or the poet Rumi.
Benjamin Hoff's biography begins the books and explains how the diary was a bestseller and then a newspaperman tried to prove it was not written by a child, but an adult. Hoff proved the authenticity to this reader - both physical evidence and circumstantial - but after reading her diary I thought, "it doesn't matter." His afterward is self-serving and can largely be skipped. Read her bio and the diary.
This is unlike anything I've ever read.
August 20, 2010
I first learned of Opal's diary from John Cartan's 20 Stranger and More Wonderful Books. I heard nothing more of it after that intriguing description and some Goodreads reviews. From all that, I somehow gathered that the book was about a strange, mystical witch-girl, on the order of Arthur Machen's White People. However, Opal's story is nothing of the kind, and in truth bears no relation whatsoever to the occult.
Opal was nothing less than a precociously literate, precociously sensitive and observant little girl. She was a child prodigy. The value and interest of her diary is the way she was able to communicate her Connection with the subtle feelings and goings-on of her natural Community. She was a nature writer of the highest order already at 6 years old. Her understanding of what's going on around her is a bit fuzzy often - she believes in fairies (a "Santa Claus" game with a kind neighbor) and souls - but her connection with everything on a spiritual and emotional level is rarely found in adult works. This is why Opal's book is not only fascinating on a literary level but crucial on a personal level. With her writing, Opal was trying to share the depth with which she empathized with the community she lived in.
Opal's story is extremely interesting on a literary level, as well. Her story is monumentally tragic, and everything about her seems too literary to be true. From her prodigious childhood, her superhuman efforts spreading her message to the children of Oregon, to her travails against the publishing industry and her developing mental illness throughout. Benjamin Hoff's introduction gives a good sense of the shape of this story, and it really does feel as though he's outlining a Hesse bildungsroman. I want everyone I love to read this book, and I feel as though it is one of the few really life-changing, magical books I've read.
Opal was nothing less than a precociously literate, precociously sensitive and observant little girl. She was a child prodigy. The value and interest of her diary is the way she was able to communicate her Connection with the subtle feelings and goings-on of her natural Community. She was a nature writer of the highest order already at 6 years old. Her understanding of what's going on around her is a bit fuzzy often - she believes in fairies (a "Santa Claus" game with a kind neighbor) and souls - but her connection with everything on a spiritual and emotional level is rarely found in adult works. This is why Opal's book is not only fascinating on a literary level but crucial on a personal level. With her writing, Opal was trying to share the depth with which she empathized with the community she lived in.
Opal's story is extremely interesting on a literary level, as well. Her story is monumentally tragic, and everything about her seems too literary to be true. From her prodigious childhood, her superhuman efforts spreading her message to the children of Oregon, to her travails against the publishing industry and her developing mental illness throughout. Benjamin Hoff's introduction gives a good sense of the shape of this story, and it really does feel as though he's outlining a Hesse bildungsroman. I want everyone I love to read this book, and I feel as though it is one of the few really life-changing, magical books I've read.
March 16, 2015
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 rug.
I found this book very charming, enlightening, but also heart-wrenching. The writing was what I would consider very advanced for a 5-6 year old, but the voice and expressions were completely believable to me for a gifted and astute child. I loved her detailing the world as she saw it around her, the same world I gazed at between reads. She was a fascinating little girl, and must have grown into an impressive young woman as she is the only person the University of Oregon accepted as a student who had not completed high school- the staff were so impressed with her. I am rather convinced that these are the self-expressions of a brilliant little girl who was constantly underestimated and misunderstood, and then treated poorly because of it. Children's voices can sadly be disregarded at times, and I absolutely believe it possible that her solemn and hard-working family shunned her for her eccentricities.
Opal's life took a sad turn as an adult, her mind slowly deteriorating due to what was diagnosed as schizophrenia. I guess this is one those "the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long" kind of situations.
Benjamin Hoff did an excellent job compiling his findings and relating his own story in how he discovered Opal's diary. His love and devotion to Opal is so apparent you can't help but feel it, too. This book is a beautiful tribute to an extraordinary person, an excellent reminder that we need to appreciate what is around us, learn to understand it, and never forget the potential clarity of seeing life through a child's eyes.
I found this book very charming, enlightening, but also heart-wrenching. The writing was what I would consider very advanced for a 5-6 year old, but the voice and expressions were completely believable to me for a gifted and astute child. I loved her detailing the world as she saw it around her, the same world I gazed at between reads. She was a fascinating little girl, and must have grown into an impressive young woman as she is the only person the University of Oregon accepted as a student who had not completed high school- the staff were so impressed with her. I am rather convinced that these are the self-expressions of a brilliant little girl who was constantly underestimated and misunderstood, and then treated poorly because of it. Children's voices can sadly be disregarded at times, and I absolutely believe it possible that her solemn and hard-working family shunned her for her eccentricities.
Opal's life took a sad turn as an adult, her mind slowly deteriorating due to what was diagnosed as schizophrenia. I guess this is one those "the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long" kind of situations.
Benjamin Hoff did an excellent job compiling his findings and relating his own story in how he discovered Opal's diary. His love and devotion to Opal is so apparent you can't help but feel it, too. This book is a beautiful tribute to an extraordinary person, an excellent reminder that we need to appreciate what is around us, learn to understand it, and never forget the potential clarity of seeing life through a child's eyes.
December 20, 2011
This is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read. It is the diary of a little girl who was orphaned at the age of five in 1900 and was sent to live in an Oregon logging camp. Her writing is so tender and dear. Her life is hard, and her grammar is her own creation but her words and her perception of the world is exquisite. She tells of being made to spend a day weeding onions by saying that, "My back has hurt feels but the little onions said 'Thank you for giving us more room to grow.'" Gorgeous little book!
The book is filled with this child's utter wonder and amazement at the natural world. She characterizes people with beautiful descriptive language ("the girl who has no seeing" and "the man with the gray tie who is kind to mice"). In one precious, sweet section Opal becomes very upset because she had been praying to the angels to bring a baby to a recently married couple. However, a neighboring couple have a baby and Opal decides the angels delivered it to the wrong house and she tries to convince the couple with the baby to give it to the other people. Of course they are very amused by this and finally, the man from the first couple, points out to Opal that he and his wife are fair-haired and light-skinned, while the others have black hair and olive-complexions and so does the baby. Opal is not sure she is convinced but decides that at least they "match".
In some ways it is almost difficult to believe that a child could write this but when you see pictures of the original manuscript (in the edition I had there wee some at the back of the book) it is utterly amazing. They were all printed in big, childish letters on pieces of cardboard and paperbags. The story of how the manuscript was created, destroyed, reconstructed and interpreted is fascinating in itself.
This is a treasure of a book.
The book is filled with this child's utter wonder and amazement at the natural world. She characterizes people with beautiful descriptive language ("the girl who has no seeing" and "the man with the gray tie who is kind to mice"). In one precious, sweet section Opal becomes very upset because she had been praying to the angels to bring a baby to a recently married couple. However, a neighboring couple have a baby and Opal decides the angels delivered it to the wrong house and she tries to convince the couple with the baby to give it to the other people. Of course they are very amused by this and finally, the man from the first couple, points out to Opal that he and his wife are fair-haired and light-skinned, while the others have black hair and olive-complexions and so does the baby. Opal is not sure she is convinced but decides that at least they "match".
In some ways it is almost difficult to believe that a child could write this but when you see pictures of the original manuscript (in the edition I had there wee some at the back of the book) it is utterly amazing. They were all printed in big, childish letters on pieces of cardboard and paperbags. The story of how the manuscript was created, destroyed, reconstructed and interpreted is fascinating in itself.
This is a treasure of a book.
July 11, 2010
This is a purely delightful story. You are inside the head of an exceptional child. There was some controversy over whether Opal really wrote this journal as a child or not, but I believe she did. I read this several years ago, but it deserves a more detailed review. I highly recommend it to anyone with a poetic soul.
I especially love the chapter on "The Many Things that Opal sees when she is sent Straight for the Milk." She is accompanied by her pet, Felix Mendelssohn the mouse (who makes very sweet music sometimes). While going straight for the milk, she zigzags across the field to look for and collect things, checks out caterpillars on an ear of corn, visits with a couple and their new baby, and visits with the trees in the lane who are named for poets and kings. She says, "It is our lane more than it is his lane, because he doesn't know the grass and flowers that grow there, and the birds that nest there, and the lizards that run along the fence, and the caterpillars and beetles that go walking along the roads made by the wagon wheels. And he doesn't stop to talk to the trees that grow all along the lane." When she's most the way home, she happens to remember the mamma wanted the milk in a hurry and so begins to hurry.
Then there's the chapter about the potatoes she lines up in the field. "Some of them were very plump. Some of them were not big. All of them wore brown dresses." Then she proceeds to organize and direct them in a choir. And so it goes from one delightful imagination to the next. The introduction about Opal's life is also interesting, but rather sad.
I especially love the chapter on "The Many Things that Opal sees when she is sent Straight for the Milk." She is accompanied by her pet, Felix Mendelssohn the mouse (who makes very sweet music sometimes). While going straight for the milk, she zigzags across the field to look for and collect things, checks out caterpillars on an ear of corn, visits with a couple and their new baby, and visits with the trees in the lane who are named for poets and kings. She says, "It is our lane more than it is his lane, because he doesn't know the grass and flowers that grow there, and the birds that nest there, and the lizards that run along the fence, and the caterpillars and beetles that go walking along the roads made by the wagon wheels. And he doesn't stop to talk to the trees that grow all along the lane." When she's most the way home, she happens to remember the mamma wanted the milk in a hurry and so begins to hurry.
Then there's the chapter about the potatoes she lines up in the field. "Some of them were very plump. Some of them were not big. All of them wore brown dresses." Then she proceeds to organize and direct them in a choir. And so it goes from one delightful imagination to the next. The introduction about Opal's life is also interesting, but rather sad.
April 28, 2015
Part of the 2015 Reading Challenge: A book written by someone under 30
This is one of those books I feel like everybody should read. Opal has such an innocent and fresh look on life; I loved how she thought and wrote, as it makes you look at the world a little differently.
Opal not only takes you back to the world of a child, but she does it in a way that makes you appreciate the small moments and the goodness of the world. With those moments of bad, you see her try to understand in her own way what happened (though, it makes it all the worse knowing this is a true story).
While the diary was never completely repaired, this book does end in a bittersweet but good spot. It leaves you wanting more, but not necessarily needing it.
Also, the controversy regarding this journal intrigues me. This isn't really spoilery unless you don't want to know anything about what others have thought of her story and her, but it amazes me some people think that Opal just made this journal up when she was older, or that the journal isn't completely truthful in that her step-family is her real family. Then there's the flip-side that some thing she is a long lost princess. I certainly don't think she made this book up, but I'm not sure I'm ready to believe she was a princess. To me, Opal was a woman who saw the world a little differently, and I'm sad more of her story couldn't be told.
This is one of those books I feel like everybody should read. Opal has such an innocent and fresh look on life; I loved how she thought and wrote, as it makes you look at the world a little differently.
Opal not only takes you back to the world of a child, but she does it in a way that makes you appreciate the small moments and the goodness of the world. With those moments of bad, you see her try to understand in her own way what happened (though, it makes it all the worse knowing this is a true story).
While the diary was never completely repaired, this book does end in a bittersweet but good spot. It leaves you wanting more, but not necessarily needing it.
Also, the controversy regarding this journal intrigues me. This isn't really spoilery unless you don't want to know anything about what others have thought of her story and her, but it amazes me some people think that Opal just made this journal up when she was older, or that the journal isn't completely truthful in that her step-family is her real family. Then there's the flip-side that some thing she is a long lost princess. I certainly don't think she made this book up, but I'm not sure I'm ready to believe she was a princess. To me, Opal was a woman who saw the world a little differently, and I'm sad more of her story couldn't be told.
Read
May 18, 2011I'm not going to give this a rating because I didn't read the main body of the book containing Opal's diary. I only read Benjamin Hoff's biography of Opal at the beginning and his additional information at the close of the book. Opal was certainly a precocious child. I admire her love of nature and desire to share that with others in a very concrete way. However, the language in the diary was not something I wanted to tangle with. She used a sort of faux-French syntax that was just plain irritating, and much of what she recorded was just mundane life events. Furthermore, she gave her animal friends very long names that were hard to remember. Every time you encounter one, you have to refer to the list at the front to remember which critter it is.
Here's a little sample of her weird writing style from page 156:
"Today after I so did leave a message on a leaf away up in a tree for him, I did have a going in along the lane..."
See what I mean? The whole diary is written like that.
Here's a wonderful review from someone who loved the book, and actually read it all the way through: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Here's a little sample of her weird writing style from page 156:
"Today after I so did leave a message on a leaf away up in a tree for him, I did have a going in along the lane..."
See what I mean? The whole diary is written like that.
Here's a wonderful review from someone who loved the book, and actually read it all the way through: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
January 13, 2013
This is an oddball of a little book to rate, and decipher. Purportedly, it is the diary of a six-year-old savant/prodigy who connects with nature on a very intimate level. Ostensibly, it is the diary of a teenage schizophrenic who, equally, has this very intimate relationship with the natural world. She can hear the bees talking, the grass singing and the earthworms sighing. Who can know for certain, after a century or more, whether she was more akin to Mozart in sensibility than she was to John Nash? On whatever level you approach it, it is mesmerizing. I found myself, quite literally, in a trance, as I followed her around in her world and convinced myself (at least for a short time, while I willingly gave myself over to the language of the book) that I saw the world again through very child-like, innocent eyes. It is an amazing read if you open your mind to "the mystical nature" ... of the Natural World. We could all do much worse than read this book and reconnect with the "singing creeks where the willows grow..."
April 8, 2012
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 her mental health. If you're interested, have a look at the Wikipedia article and other resources found here.
Whether Opal -- or "Francoise" -- really wrote the journal as a child, or as an increasingly disturbed young woman, it's still a engaging and heart-tugging read.
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 her mental health. If you're interested, have a look at the Wikipedia article and other resources found here.
Whether Opal -- or "Francoise" -- really wrote the journal as a child, or as an increasingly disturbed young woman, it's still a engaging and heart-tugging read.
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