Miss Rumphius
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney had been read aloud several times to my children when they were little. From reading the book, this was my first exposure to the lupine plant. I had never seen the plant in person until I recently visited Minnesota's North Shore. Imagine lush, shades of green covering vast fields, then met with bunches of purple lupines. I immediately thought of Miss Rumphius and her goal to "make the world more beautiful," by planting lupine seeds in the wild. This is the power of a living book. Charlotte Mason said "So much for the right books; the right use of them is another matter. The children must enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden, delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir, which mark the inception of an idea." Ideas from a living book are meaningful and very often leave a memory in our minds.
