The Man Who Lived Alone

I love four things about this book. First, this great contemporary poet wrote it. It also reminds me of Fisherman Simms, a book from my childhood featuring a similar character and pastoral setting. I love the simple but elegant black and white pen and ink illustrations.I also love the story. The nameless man built a camp on Ragged Mountain and lived alone collecting things, thousands of rusty nails, deer pelts, old newspapers and clocks, and "wasps nests hanging from railroad spike." He built a shed for his mule, who does have a name--Old Beauty. He survived a terrible childhood, a house fire, and when he was 14 left home and tramped around until he returned home to visit his cousins, who made a few years of his youth happy. He liked eating vegetables because "that is what the woodchuck ate." He made friends with an owl named Grover Cleveland. He worked as a carpenter and could do everything else too.Not much happens here. But this story offers an intense tranquility that others lack. In our harried age, children need this kind of peace. Alyssa A. Lappen

I read this book as a fresh eyed 18 year old. I am now a 40 year old woman tattered but not shattered. This happens to be one of those books so rare to me, I feel the same way about it today as I did the first time I ever read it. I gave my copy to my sister an English Lit. teacher. She uses it every semester. Mr. Hall signed it for her. I now only have a photo copy of it and it breaks my heart that I don't have the book. God Bless Mr. Hall and his most magnificent literary ability.