The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley [Paperback]

Opal Whiteley (Author), Benjamin Hoff (Editor)

Book Description

Capturing America's heart in 1920, Opal's childhood diary became an immediate bestseller. Innocent and intimate, this haunting diary reveals the life of a kind of feminine Peter Pan in the Oregon wilderness. Rediscovered and proven authentic by the bestselling author of The Tao of Pooh, it is now accompanied by a biography and afterword. Syndicated radio news features.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140237208
• ISBN-13: 978-0140237207
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astounding literature, July 18, 2005

By 

Mrs Baldwin (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley (Paperback)

This book is the diary of a six-year-old girl named Opal Whiteley, who grew up in Oregon logging camps in the early 1900s. She loved nature and her writing style was inimitably beautiful.

Her diary was published first in 1920, but became the centre of a large controversy and was dismissed as a fraud. Mr Hoff discovered a copy of this book by chance in 1983, and was so fascinated by it that he spent years researching the life of Opal to determine the true story.

It most certainly is no fraud. Mr Hoff opens this book with a very well-researched, unbiased biography of Opal which proves beyond doubt that this really was her diary written at age six. He follows this up with the diary (or what exists of it), and ends with the tale of his story of trying to meet Opal personally.

The tone of the book, by the time you have read from beginning to end, is one of tragedy. However, like the lonely, brave tones of a bird chirping through the twilight its farewell to the setting sun and a day that shall never return, beauty sometimes IS bitter sweet; but the quiet love, the charming way Opal describes her surroundings, her pets, the people she meets, and the voices of the natural world which Opal understood so well balance out the sadness and make this book well worth reading and adding to your personal collection.

Opal's story is at once a sad commentary on the way one small hint of a rumour can snowball into the destruction of a person's life and a celebration of childhood and nature. It is mostly the latter.

This is a brief passage from the diary part of the book, to give you a sample of its simplistic yet profound loveliness.

"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 here in the ground, and all the things they did hear. Earth-voices are glad voices, and earth-songs come up from the ground through the plants; and in their flowering, and in the days before these days are come, they do tell the earth-songs to the wind. And the wind in her goings does whisper them to folks to print for other folks, so other folks do have knowing of earth's songs. When I grow up, I am going to write for children - and grownups that haven't grown up too much - all the earth-songs I now do hear."

Doesn't that just sound like such music?

Please read this book. Take it to heart.

And thank you, Mr Hoff, for your loving tribute to an amazing woman, and for the hard work you did to bring this masterpiece back into the public eye.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Literal EYE and EAR Opener, January 3, 2000

By 

frisky2000 "frisky2000" (Margaritaville) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley (Paperback)

Do you believe nature has a voice? That when you walk a quiet stretch of beach you can almost HEAR the ocean whispering to you? Opal Whitely was an extraordinary human being, both misunderstood and respected, though unfortunately not as much until after her death. This book was required reading for a college Orality in Literature course and it set the stage for the entire semester. It is so thought-provoking, sensitive, forthright and creative that you will not be able to put it down without somehow being changed in the way you "see" "feel" and "hear" the world around you. There is so much to be learned. Let Opal teach you.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opal Whiteley - Forgotten Genius, April 19, 2000

By 

Lara Dale - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley (Paperback)

16 year old Opal Whiteley was one of the greatest botanists in America in the early twentieth century, until a tragic vendetta ruined her good name, and she was sent off to be institutionalized in England. She would have died completely unknown were it not for the dedication and fanaticism of famed author Benjamin Hoff, (Tao of Pooh; Te of Piglet) who made it his mission to carefully research all the facts behind the vengeful campaign of lies which led to the discrediting of a true American genius.

Both a vital piece of history, and a great read, this book is a sort of naturalist detective novel that leads, through painstaking investigation, to the restoration of a great woman's reputation. It is interspersed with the actual notes from her famed childhood diary, cause of so much publicity and heartache, and is partly responsible for renewed efforts to create a museum around the crumbling Opal Whiteley archives in the library of her tiny hometown in Oregon. Definitely a must read.