Carolyn G. Mahan

I selected this book because I was reading Ms. Rich's writings (We took to the woods) during my last year on the tenure-track. She writes beautifully about raising her family in the woods of Maine in the 1930s. She doesn't preach about why we should preserve the forests or the streams but her description of life in Maine allows the reader to respect and cherish what being in the wild does for people both spiritually and practically. As co-coordinator of the Environmental Studies program at Penn State Altoona, I think these lessons are relevant to our students today.