Richards Free Library Blog

JANUARY 3, 2008
Information Exchange

Last week I read holiday stories to residents at the Woodlawn Nursing Home.   I love the chance to read stories to adults because I usually read to preschoolers and toddlers who do not always listen.  I am from Alaska, so I chose as one of my stories A Northern Christmas by Rockwell Kent.  In it, Rockwell Kent describes a Christmas he spent in 1941 with his nine-year old son on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay, Alaska.  I love the description of his cabin (really just a barn), decorated for Christmas.  But I have always puzzled over how Rockwell Kent from Maine ended up in such an out-of-the-way place.  I finished reading that and a few other stories and was getting ready to leave when a woman who had been sitting just outside our group stopped me.  She told me that she loved to visit Monhegan Island in Maine where Rockwell Kent had lived.  And she said “you know, he found a place to stay on Fox Island because one of the Olson family from Monhegan Island was living there.”  Wow!   The book speaks fondly of “Olson” but I didn’t know his connection to Maine.   An answer to a question and a thoughtful conversation is a holiday gift that I treasure, and I am grateful to work in a place where these conversations are a part of my day. 

 

Sandy Sonnichsen, Assistant Children’s Librarian   January 3, 2008

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