Interesting story- I had never heard of Opal Whiteley prior to this book. I am still not sure what I think about the controversy surrounding her writing, but I find it fascinating that she was considered so brilliant as a child because the plants and animals talked to her- to the extent that she traveled all over the US to talk about nature- and it was later discovered that she had Schizophrenia. I wish more had been written about her as she aged.

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."

This is such an unusual book. It is possible to open it to any page, start reading, and fall under its spell. Thanks to Benjamin Hoff's research and fascination with Opal Whiteley, another generation will know and love her as he does. It took me awhile to finish the book, due to its meandering nature and strange grammar, but I looked forward to reading a little bit every night. Opal's voice comes through so clearly, her observations are both innocent and wise, and I absolutely love that she has conversations with trees and names her animal and plant friends after famous people in European history and Greek mythology. It doesn't matter if she wrote it as a child, or wrote it as a young woman, it's an amazing work written by someone with an amazing mind.

A novel/diary/hoax/not hoax that was a sensation in the 1920s and went out of print a year after publication. I still haven't made up my mind as to the validity of Whiteley's story. Whether this was evidence of her illness or her precociousness, I don't know. However, her life was fascinating and her writing held my attention. I'm glad that I read it. Another good suggestion from the boss.

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!

2020 Update: Reading this aloud made me cry more times than any other book.

_____

As always, the book is both a breath of fresh air and an emotional battering-ram.

One of the worst books I've ever read.

In the Oregon Wilamette Valley young Opal Whiteley began to keep a diary of her feelings and observations of nature. In 1920 it was published with great acclaim. But then people began to investigate her life story and found that things didn't add up and as quickly as it rose into favor, the journal fell out.

But that wasn't the end of the story. In 1983 Benjamin Hoff found an old copy on the library shelf. He found the diary fascinating and began researching the life of Opal Whiteley and discovered that she had schizophrenia, which he believes lead to her early precocious writing and fantasies.

I thought her story told by him was fascinating. I got bored at about chapter 8 in her diary.