Stories That Wonder

As a little kid, I spent parts of three glorious summers on the islands of Frenchboro and Isle Au Haut in Maine where my dad served as a summer minister through the Maine Seacoast Mission. Each day, my mom and I explored the tide pools and walked around the islands. I learned about the islands by observation and touch, skipping stones, picking flowers and berries, discovering sea stars and crabs, feeling the slippery ribbons of seaweed, observing small creatures as they scuttled along the beach or floated in the tide.

I’m sure that’s where my lifelong fascination with ferries, islands, and tide pools was born. I was encouraged to explore and observe the dramatic changes in the natural world around me. I’ve never outgrown my love of exploring the tide’s edge for small shells and stones, for poking about in a tide pool.

In my most recent website redesign, I decided on the tagline “Stories that Wonder. Stories that Matter.” I later realized it was inspired by Robert McCloskey’s classic Time of Wonder, one of my favorite picture books. Some books don’t hold up over time, but in many ways, I think McCloskey’s does.

I can always tap into that sense of wonder and magic, particularly on cold and rainy inside days, when I reread McCloskey’s Time of Wonder. I think that’s what good books can do: they can help you to discover (or relive) the magic around us. I love the descriptions, the particular Maine ocean imagery, the nod to adventure, and the appreciation of what can be discovered in the quiet. At the end of the book, McCloskey says, “It is a time of quiet wonder.” I think that’s what I aspire to in my own writing: how to capture the wonder of our natural world and inspire a new generation of environmentalists and conservationists who want to save and protect it.