If Once You Have Slept on an Island

by Rachel Field, Iris Van Rynbach (Illustrator)

Describes how life on an island is different, however similar it may appear to life on the mainland

27 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1993

About the author

Rachel Lyman Field was an American novelist, poet, and author of children's fiction. She is best known for her Newbery Medal–winning novel for young adults, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years , published in 1929.

As a child Field contributed to the St. Nicholas Magazine and was educated at Radcliffe College. Her book, Prayer for a Child, was a recipient of the Caldecott Medal for its illustrations by Elizabeth Orton Jones. According to Ruth Hill Vigeurs in her introduction to Calico Bush , book of Rachel Field for children, published in 1931, Rachel Field was "fifteen when she first visited Maine and fell under the spell of its 'island-scattered coast'. Calico Bush still stands out as a near-perfect re-creation of people and place in a story of courage, understated and beautiful." Field was also a successful author of adult fiction, writing the bestsellers Time Out of Mind (1935), All This and Heaven Too (1938), and And Now Tomorrow (1942). She is also famous for her poem-turned-song "Something Told the Wild Geese". Field also wrote the English lyrics for the version of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria used in the Disney film Fantasia. Field married Arthur S. Pederson in 1935, with whom she collaborated in 1937 on To See Ourselves.

Field was a descendant of David Dudley Field. She died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, California on March 15, 1942 of pneumonia following an operation.

Reviews

[Maria Hagen]

I very much enjoyed this book. The text is simple and rhythmic, just like water surrounding the island it describes. The text draws the reader forward with the lilting rhythm and the intrigue of a small experience changing how you view the world. I never lived on an island as a child but they always intrigued me. The surrounding water, the beat of waves were things that I only read about. I have one simple complaint with this book which is that the pictures are very generic and don’t draw on the enthusiasm and curiosity of the book. They feel boring by comparison. With different pictures, this book could be almost perfect.

[Chelsea Emery]

This book os based on a old poem. The pictures were dull and the book was boring and did not keep my attention.

[Siobhan]

Illustrations

[Ash]

Beautifully illustrated painting.