THE GIVER OF STARS- JULY 2020 BOOK SELECTION

British born Alice Wright marries a handsome American and moves to rural Kentucky believing she will escape the home and cloistered existence where she was never accepted. She seeks to find happiness, belonging, excitement and adventure in a new life full of endless possibility.

Set in Depression-era America, opportunities were rare and especially so for women. Alice finds she has escaped one prison for another until she hears of an organization that came to be known as The Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.

This idea was the foster child of the indomitable Eleanor Roosevelt. It created traveling libraries populated by women who traveled by horse, mule and cart to rural areas to bring literature and thus an opportunity for education to those unable to have access any other way.

This story illuminates a previously unknown (to me) true account of the accomplishments of these women, their bravery, grit, friendship and hope.

Highly recommend.

The Giver of Stars

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.

Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me

With its clear and rippled coolness,

That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest,

Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.

Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,

That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,

The life and joy of tongues of flame,

And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,

I may rouse the blear-eyed world,

And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.

                                             - Amy Lowell - 1874-1925

Born in 1874, Amy Lowell was deeply interested in and influenced by the Imagist movement and she received the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What's O'Clock.