Literary Tourism With A Possible Environmental Connection

Earlier this month, I went on an extended vacation to Michigan and Indiana (by way of Canada and coming back through Ohio and Pennsylvania). This is the third road trip with bicycles that we've taken, and each time I worked in an author stop. When we did the Maritime Provinces, we visited Green Gables in Cavendish PEI, and I read Anne of Green Gables. Last year while in Ohio, we hit James Thurber's home in Columbus. I reread My Life and Hard Times.

This year we went to Gene Stratton-Porter's cabin at Wildflower Woods. I invested in a 99 cent eBook collection of her work, including A Girl of the Limberlost, the title that sounded most familiar to me. That's the one read.

While I looked forward to the home visit, I had a feeling of resistance about Limberlost. The book is over a hundred years old, and while I used to read children's books from that era and recall liking things like The Five Little Peppers and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, I was a lot younger then. My tolerance for...mmm...improving literature, which is what I was afraid Limberlost is, was a lot greater then. I may be beyond improvement now.

Then I realized that Limberlost might have an environmental angle, since Stratton-Porter is sometimes described as a nature writer. That could be interesting, especially given the book's age. It would also make it material for the Environmental Book Club feature at my Original Content blog.

Blogging the Limberlost

I also decided that reading the book might be more interesting, or at least less tedious, if I could respond to it while I was slogging through it. Hey, that's what blogs are for, right? And I've got one! Two counting this one at Goodreads.

So over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my thoughts on a 116-year-old book about a girl and a swamp.

A slightly different version of this post appeared at Original Content