I am one of those people who has read Walden over and over again over a period of decades, and have owned several editions. This is by far the best I have seen. It is quite helpful in the explanations it provides for some of the more obscure passages, is beautifully put together, and is simply a pleasure to read.

Thoreau was part crank and part visionary, like a crazy uncle. I am glad to have known him through his books. Taken with a grain of salt, his perspectives are refreshing and often illuminating. He helps his readers see there are indeed different ways to look at the world.

For 2 years and 2 months, Thoreau decided to live life in the Concord Wilderness near Walden Pond, as an experiment. He wanted to see if complete self-reliance was possible. As an experiment in pure solitary living, unaided by the trapping and encumberances of society, Thoreau failed. But as a book of profound insight and beauty, Waldon ranks supreme in the history of American literature, and the bulk of his insights and observations stand. I say failed, because Thoreau often spent evenings at the town pub, drink and talking, where from he would stumble home drunk without the aid of lamp light to find his way. Moreover, asside from a doting mother who would often bring him homemade victuals as a break from mountain berries and salted meats, he often stayed over with the Emersons when the loneliness was particularly biting. So clearly Thoreau was never as detached from society as he would have us believe, and yet that is neither here nor there. Thoreau was an amazing writer, an observant naturalist, brilliant social critic, and perhaps the most singular individual America has ever known - and for that Thoreau cannot be beat. edition of Waldon is particularly good, in that Hardin has done exactly what all editors should do. In keeping with the Thoreauvian motto, he has made the text simple and accessable, clarifying points with annotation and references. After reading Waldon, you might also want to check Harding's biography of Thoreau, which I highly recommend. Among other things, you will learn about his trouble with women. (Interestingly, like many philospohers, Thoreau died a virgin.)

Just as Alexander carried a copy of the Iliad in a precious cask, I have cherished a dog-eared and well marked copy of Walden for a quarter of a century. Now at last we have a binding worthy of one of the greatest books of all time. The embossed cover, the lavishly illustrated endpapers and page footers, the vast number of drawings from Thoreau's pen, and the detailed Masorah-like marginalia elucidate the familiar text and enrich the reading experience. The many references in the notes to Thoreau's Journal have lead me far afield into the various editions of the Journal (at least those I can afford). This is a first rate edition which I hope to carry with me the rest of my life.

After finishing "My Contract with Henry," I let out a sigh. Not only did this book pull you in with a captivating plot, it also had a complete ending. I guess you could say, all the "i's" were dotted, and all the "t's" were crossed. The book gives you satisfaction of reading it. Having read many, many books in my life, I do not have a favorite all together. Sure, i have favorites per genre, but this book left me with out a doubt. This IS my favorite young adult novel. Robin Vaupel is a very accomplished writer, and I can not wait for the next of her books, "Austin's Orbit." I know hopefully that one day, this great book, "My Contract with Henry," willbe a major motion picture!

My 11 year old son read this book and wrote a review for the school newspaper. This is what he wrote. "This excellent novel, tells of a ninth grader, Beth Gardner, who is assigned an experiment that would change her life. As she lives in the woods trying to relive the life of Henry David Thoreau she learns to love the wilderness. When a building company buys the woods, Beth does not know if she can save her beloved sanctuary. Mrs. Robin Vaupel is a devoted teacher and a promising author. Her hard work and dedication, that she put into this book has paid off with fabulous results. This was the best book I have ever read and it was a privilege to be allowed to read this magnificent story before it hit the shelves. I would recommend this book and if I had the authority I would not hesitate to award it he Newberry Medal. On a scale of 1-10 I would give this book a 10."

You really have to read this you'll love it. I think that Robin Vaupel will be the next best selling auther. This book really should be made into a movie.We really need to tell as many people as we can about it!

Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817, was one of the co-founders and most influential representatives of the philosophical school known as "Transcendentalism." (Others include fellow Concord residents Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott, reformist teacher and father of Louisa May Alcott.) Thoreau's life centered around his home town; yet, as his writings reflect, he was very familiar with all major philosophical schools of his time, not only those developing in America but also the writings of Kant, Goethe, Schiller and Hegel - indeed, the very term "transcendentalist" derives, as Emerson explained, from Kant, who had first recognized intuitive thought as a kind of thought in its own right, holding "that there was a very important class of ideas ... which did not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired ... [and which] were intuitions of the mind itself." These were the ideas which Kant had called "transcendental forms." (Or, as Thoreau himself once put it in his Journal: "I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations.")

To this day, transcendentalist philosophy, and Thoreau's work in particular, has proven enormously influential - on the program of the British Labour Party as much as on people as diverse as spiritual leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. on the one hand and rock star Don Henley on the other hand. Henley in the 1990s even went so far as to found the Walden Woods Project, teaming up with the Thoreau Society to preserve as much as possible of Walden Woods and the land around Concord, and foster education about Thoreau. Yet, during his life time only few of his many works, now considered so influential, were published, and even those did not find wide distribution. "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself," he commented on the poor sales of his "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers."

This collection, one of two Library of America volumes dedicated to Thoreau's works and edited by renowned Thoreau scholar Elizabeth Hall Witherell, presents the majority of his essays and poems, from well-known works such as "Civil Disobedience," "Life Without Principle" and "Walking" to a large body of lesser known (but just as quotable!) writings and loving observations of nature ("Autumnal Tints," "Wild Apples," "Huckleberries"). A companion volume, edited by Robert F. Sayre, contains Thoreau's four longest publications ("A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," "The Maine Woods," "Cape Cod" and, of course, "Walden") - thus omitting from the Library of America series only his extensive journals and the posthumously published "Faith in a Seed," a collection of four manuscripts left partially unfinished at Thoreau's death in 1862 and published for the first time in the late 1990s, to much fanfare among Thoreauvians the world over.

Introspective to a fault, the man who once built a cabin on Walden Pond and for over two years lived the life of a hermit, was also a keen observer; of nature as much as of the world surrounding him. The shallowness and greed he saw in so-called "civil" society filled him with skepticism ("intellectual and moral suicide," he scoffed in "Life Without Principle") - and with the tireless need to encourage free thinking and personal independence. "I wish to speak a word for Nature," he thus opened his essay on "Walking," and explained that he sought to make a point in favor of "absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society." And he went on to mourn the fact that few people were truly able to walk and travel freely, to leave behind the social bounds that tied them down, and to open up to nature's beauty. This, of course, echoed his famous statements in "Walden" that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation;" that however, as he had learned by his "experiment" on Walden Pond, "if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." And this was the same spirit who, staunchly opposed to both slavery and to the Mexican War, would rather spend a night in jail than pay his taxes, and who summed up his posture in "Civil Disobedience" by saying that "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right" - a statement echoed roughly a hundred years later when Mahatma Gandhi told an English court that he believed that "non-cooperation with evil is a duty and British rule of India is evil," and also resonating through the publications of many an American civil rights leader, first and foremost Martin Luther King Jr.

While I had read much of Thoreau's work already before I discovered the Library of America collections, I am extremely pleased to see the majority of his body of work reunited in two volumes in this dignified series. For one thing, while there are innumerable compilations containing "Walden" and some of his other better-known works, it is still difficult to get a hold of Thoreau's lesser known essays and poems. Moreover, though, and more importantly, reading his works in the context provided by this collection makes for much greater insight into the man's personality, and his philosophy as a whole. While a biography certainly adds perspective, nothing surpasses the experience of reading Thoreau's works in context - and in the context of the works of other Transcendentalists, first and foremost Emerson. This is a true literary treasure: to behold, cherish and read again and again.

The LoA editions are wonderful. Their texts are definitive, and the quality of the binding and the paper is top-notch (acid free, etc; it's lightweight, so they can fit everything into a small package.) I've bought a number of LoA editions second hand, and they stand up very well (the type is wonderful and easy to read.)

The problem is that people come out with lots of editions of Thoreau that are piecemeal. You can get Civil Disobedience with Walden, but then you can't find Walking.

Another advantage to the LoA is that they don't have annoying prefaces that tell you how to read the text.

This is a very fine collection of Essays and Poems but a bit pricey. I have to think that Thoreau would not have approved. Go to the library and paw through some of the essays
to see if you want the ones that you cannot get through another
collection. Frequently "Walking" or "Civil Disobedience" or
"Life Without Principle" are added to small volumes of Walden.
I, of course, shelled out the cash and bought it, but I
sometimes have second thoughts. The paper is quite thin and
I have doubts about it's durablity. If you intend to read this
work several times while underlining and making notes, I would look aroung before buying this specific volume. If you merely want a presentable copy to sit on the shelves and only occasionally consulted, but otherwise dormant-than this is for you.
As a side note, Thoreau demonstrates that some mediums are
better for others. Although a master prose essay writer( I see
"Walden" a a collection of discrete, connected essays) his
poetry isn't so great. This is not uncommon, although a great
prose-poet, Nietzsche's straight poetry is very weak.
Essentially, the material inside this volume is worth your
money. This volume itself may not satisfy your needs though.
Go to a university library, read through the essays, and decide
how important ownership is for you. Thoreau would have approved
of such an investigation.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I have moved to the Boston area only a year ago, and this book has helped me learn a lot about the life in and around Cape Cod since 1621. The characters seem almost real with all the trials and tribulations they have had to suffer. I highly recommned it to any reader who enjoys historical novels (the best!).

You will forget about the outside world when you read this; nothing but sand, wind, and water. Plus some natural history, local folklore, a few shipwreck tales. Typical Thoreau; he finds beauty, interest, detail in the wilderness. The desolate landscape will help to clear your mind. Highly recommended.

Each year, in preparation for a week's retreat to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I go in search of a book that would be perfect for a sojourn on a desert island. Of course, the Outer Banks are hardly deserted--the locals have printed up Wege's infamous photograph of a packed stretch of Coney Island with the caption "Nags Head, circa 2000 A.D."--but there we are on an island for seven days, my husband experiencing near death in the waves while I read. Sometimes we stop these pursuits and prowl the beach. Mostly we live as if we're the last two people on earth (which is easier in the off-peak season). I've learned that not every book is right for this way of life. The perfect desert island book has to celebrate the place you are in, not transport you. It should offer a tinge of society, because, after all, a human is a social animal, but it should not make you yearn achingly for what has been left behind nor should you be so repelled by it that you will never fit in again when you leave the island (you always leave the island). It should have some narrative sweep to withstand the competition of the seascape. It should make you think, at least a little: you want the stress to wash out to sea, not the little grey cells. Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau is the benchmark by which I've chosen beach material for several years. it is the quintessential celebration of littoral life. If you are on the beach, you appreciate it all the more; if you are not, well, at least you know vividly what you are missing. There is drama, as in the specter of villagers racing to the shore at the news of a shipwreck. There is information, as in what part of the clam not to eat, how the Indians trapped gulls for food, how a lighthouse really works. There is Thoreau's contagious respect for solitude, his occasional crankiness, and that magic trick of his that can suck in high school sophomores and get them through his books without so much as a whimper. There is one flaw to Cape Cod: brevity. It lasts about a day and a half on the Robinson Crusoe plan. This is not to say that it does not withstand re-reading, it does, but at some point after you have committed it to memory, you may wish for the collected works of Shakespeare and move onto the Bard's beach play, The Tempest.

If you like the writings of Thoreau, you will love this biography. Thoreau really comes to life and Walter Harding does a great job at aquainting us with Thoreau as if he were our neighbor or close friend. You will love all the stories of his childhood, his many excursions and his never ending desire for knowledge of nature. Also, at the end Harding dicusses Thoreaus's sexuality, which for me was a burning question throughout the book. There is no better biography out there written on Thoreau.

This book looks at Thoreau's life in depth. The first few chapters try to show how Thoreaus young life shaped his older years. Always complicated both in his young and old years. This book also gives great details of Thoreaus many excursions, and the many people with whom he graced with his presence. If you in interested in Thoreau, it would be in your best interest to buy this book, it's the link between his life and his work.

I've alway's been in the habit of reading about the life of an author before acually reading his works and this book has covered all the bases of an incredibly intelligent man. His prose of description was in depth, and at the same time it showed views of alot of his friends in a town full of intellects. It makes you feel like you were there living Concord enjoying the scenes on Walden with thoughts from a perspective that the average person would not usually pull from any kind of methodical observation.

I would read this book again and again for a distinctive and magnanimous outlook from one the most notable Thoreau scholars.

My grandson, who is six, especially enjoyed the arithmetic lesson in this book, as Henry's friend adds up his earnings steadily. He was also interested in seeing which bear got to Fitchburg first. The illustrations are charming, and the story wears well for repeated reading. As for the references to the Alcotts and Emerson and Henry the Bear's likemindedness with Henry David Thoreau, that's just an extra for adults.

3 to 8 yrs. Some may find this book objectionable in that they may believe that its underlying message for children is 'work is bad.' But that doesn't seem to be the author's intent. It seems to be more observational then as a teaching tool.

Based on a passage from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the story is about Henry--the main animal character (bear?) in the story--and his friend, who decide to go to Fitchburg. Henry chooses to walk the 30 miles, while his friend plans to work, so that he can earn enough money to ride the train. We then bounce from character to character to witness what they are experiencing in their quest to get to Fitchburg.

Good illustrations, and interesting story providing ample discussion material for parents and children, about the different meanings this story possess.

This is a wonderful picture book about two bears who both want to reach Fitchburg, a town thirty miles away. Henry decides to walk, and his friend decides to do odd jobs around town in order to earn money for the train fare. The reader can decide with the turn of every page which bear is enjoying the journey more. A great book about how the journey is as important as reaching the destination. Also a note on the the origin of the story and Henry David Thoreau. Great illustrations as well.

The Heart Of Thoreau's Journals provides readers with an intimate glimpse into the heart and mind of American literature's premier individualist. Consolidated into 218 concise pages by Odell Shepard from the 39 volumes Thoreau left behind upon his death at 45 in 1862, the journals reveal Thoreau as an irreverent and shrewd observer of the human character who was happily fated with the gift of forever seeing the king riding proudly in public without clothes ("The mass never comes up the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to the level with the lowest," "After all, the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing - room. There is at least no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which makes one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand - play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask," "This lament for a golden age is only a lament for golden men").

Requiring solitude in the manner most require food and shelter, the philosophical, ascetic Thoreau lived most of his life in isolation ("The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof") as an ardent lover and keen observer of the natural world ("All of nature is my bride," "My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking - places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature"). A comedic misanthrope ("I have lived some thirty - odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors," "The society of young women is the most unprofitable I have ever tried"), Thoreau also wrote with sympathy, understanding, and concern about the townspeople whose company he preferred not to keep. Even his plain - spoken contempt for the boorish, the smug, the pretentious and the assertively conformist ("What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm") was often tempered with humanity and matter - of - fact acceptance for the inevitable variations of man's psychology. The simple, the genuine, the uncomplicated and the sincere came in for high marks in Thoreau's estimation of people, places, and things.

A Harvard graduate who was born and spent most of his life in New England, bachelor Thoreau set the standard and defined the blueprint for all introverted American artists and thinkers to come. Though Thoreau wrote incessantly and found work as a lecturer, schoolteacher, editor, and tutor at different periods of his life, he typically worked as a gardener, handyman or land surveyor, and spent a particularly frustrating period working in his father's pencil factory. Though he knew himself to be misunderstood by most, Thoreau was uncomplaining ("Ah! How I have thriven on solitude and poverty! I cannot overstate this advantage"), confident, ultimately self - satisfied, and generally unconcerned with what, if anything, future generations would make of him. The respect, acknowledgement, and honor of society meant far less to him than his day - to - day, moment - to - moment freedom to continue to enjoy his perceptions, sensations, and ideas, which he rightfully understood to be his life's work and birthright.

As one of the founders of Transcendentalism, the idealistic Thoreau was a dryly passionate believer in man's capacity to overcome mundane (and often self - imposed) obstacles, identify and focus his attention on the eternal fundamentals of life, and enjoy personal communion with God by utilizing nature as a lens. The journals abound with declarative passages which readers have found enlightening, guiding, and inspirational for generations ("Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, and not to fail," "We forever and ever and habitually underrate our fate...ninety - nine and one - hundredths of our lives we are mere hedgers and ditchers, but from time to time we meet with reminders of our destiny"). Thoreau's journals, along with key American text and masterpiece Walden, represent the cream of his work.

I once sat through a very snide speech, by a very snide editor, who pontificated in a very snide manner, that "no one wants to read your journals." This editor was of course a fool- the very best writing is to be found in personal journals. Nowhere is this demonstrated to be more true than in Thoreau's. Or as he himself put it,"The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience." Well, these writings inflame the mind. Thoreau was that rarest of of divine gifts, a true Individual. I often wonder if he did not represent the highest point that anyone in our society ever reached- the high water mark of a civilization before steam engines, corporations, and mass education reduced us to our present state.
I was concerned that the journals might suffer by editing, especially if an academic type with a deconstructionist ax to grind got his hands on them. Mr. Shepard's brief introduction put my mind to rest. He obviously has a close sympathy with the spirit of Henry David Thoreau and his selections are masterful. As Shepard puts it: "With a fit audience, though few, he is likely to win a more thoughtful reading now that individuals are so obviously withering among us, now that men are quite obviously enslaved by machines, now that we have floundered about as far as we can in the bogs of stupidity, greed, and cowering compliance that he warned us against long ago."
If _Walden_ spoke to you, these journal entries will speak even more strongly to you. This is the spring from which _Walden_ and all the rest sprang. This is the soul of Thoreau. It is the soul of the true America before the Byzantine rot set in.
There is one line from the very first year of the journals that has never ceased to inspire me: "All fear of the world or consequences is swallowed up in a manly anxiety to do Truth justice."

"The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burs." Thoreau's Journal, June 4, 1839. This is certainly true with me and this book.

No book that I own -- aside from Scripture -- is more valuable to me than this slim one. I have reread it countless times, usually while sitting of a warm or cool evening beneath the trees waiting for the stars to troop out.

In Walden Thoreau speaks of Alexander carrying the Iliad in a precious cask with him on his journeys. This is book worthy to be carried with me on my journey.

As I read and reread this book it causes me to look on everything I have ever thought, done or believed in a new and startlingly new light.

This little paperback is at once one of the cheapest and most valuable books I own.

Compared to books such as "Voluntary Simplicity" by Duane Elgin and similar books, one realises that many of these ideas are nothing new when one reads Walden by Thoreau. In fact, what strikes me is that we as a Western society have not overcome many of the issues pointed out by Thoreau 150 years ago. Thoreau left Concord MA "disdainful of America's growing commercialism and industrialism", the slavish materialism of that society then. One wonders what he'll say if he would see the extend today - in the post Coca-Cola society. But then Thoreau was a man who clearly stepped to his own drum. Becuase of slavery, he refused to support the state on moral grounds. How would his views have been tolerated today?

I am not luddite, but my favourite quote from the book is this: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing to communicate". Does this say something about the Internet, newsmedia and our contemporary information overload, or what?

I liked the introduction and footnotes of Meyer. Just enough to provide context and explanation, but never intrusive. This book is as relevant today as it was during Thoreau's lifetime. Highly recommended.

H.D. Thoreau is the first and most important figure in U.S. Radicalism. This collection provides the essential background for the latent radicalism inherent in American politics, especially as it was vocalized in the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements of the 1960's.

Disobedience is the shorter of the texts, but probably more important. It is an attempt to justify moral anarchism and a call to act on individual judgements about justice.

Walden can be interpreted as an important treatise against consumerism and the dangers of specialization, as well as an appreciation of the natural environment. Those interested in anti-globalization/anti-free trade movements would do well to read Walden to gain an understanding of where anti-consumerism came from and an examination of its ethical implications. However, it also pays to remember that Walden is a failed experiment and, in the end, Thoreau returns to Cambridge.

Thoreau, as political philosophy, has certain problems. Moral anarchy and denial of the social contract is difficult to replace in civil society--Thoreau makes no more than the most vague references as to what could replace it, seeming to rely on the fact that his personal sense of justice is universal.

Nevertheless, Thoreau's conscience has resonance and is as relevant today as ever. His rejection of consumerism as the basis for society and its stratification also teaches important lessons.

Thoreau represents that first step in understanding the other part of American political thought--extremely different from that of the Constitution and Federalist Papers--but with profound connections to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I can only speak from experience on this one. This is one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Thoreau influenced my views on liberty, justice, and integrity [following what is right, not merely that which is deemed law]. The inner journey Thoreau got me started on has continued throughout my life. I credit him for instilling within me the concept of "Teach me how to think, not what"--invaluable to the fledgling independent thinker and philosopher. I highly recommend Ralph Waldo Emerson, in conjunction with Thoreau.

"The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, who also coauthored the classic "Inherit the Wind." "Night" is inspired by the life and writings of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), naturalist, political radical, and seminal American intellectual figure. The play was first performed in 1970.

"Night" takes place during a night when Thoreau was jailed for an act of civil disobedience: he refused to pay a tax in defiance of the Polk administration's Mexican War. The action of the play consists of a series of interconnected, dreamlike scenes that explore Thoreau's life, ideals, and relationships. We see his theory of education, his strong opposition to slavery, his family ties, and, quite strikingly, his problematic yet enduring relationship with fellow American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Particularly moving is Thoreau's encounter with an escaped slave.

"Night" is a moving, even inspiring, play. Thoreau is celebrated as not merely a crucial thinker and a great man, but as a truly transcendent figure: a prophet whose voice continues to resound. Highly recommended for literature classes, reading groups, and individual readers.

Review of ¡°The night Thoreau Spent in Jail¡± Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, in early 1800¡¯s, rejected paying taxes because the U.S. government exercised its authority to the slaves, Mexicans, and pageants through the fugitives slave law, the Mexican War, and so on. The play, ¡°The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail,¡± written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is based on his spending one night in jail. The circumstance, a cell in the prison, allowed him to recall his past and discover himself as a pencil-maker, a school teacher, an author, a handy man, etc. Each scene implies his various talents as showing him not just as a great philosopher or a writer, but as a human being.

Thoreau had been inspired by the humanism speech of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was the Sage of Concord. In order to follow Waldo¡¯s lecture, he declared himself free, and he tried not to yield another¡¯s will. He practiced his philosophy by teaching the nature to the students, trying to distinguish himself from others, surveying living things in the meadow, and refusing the taxes to the unfair government. He was so called, a ¡°transcendentalist¡±, and he kept emphasizing ¡°BE YOUR OWN MAN!¡± His saying, ¡°The freest man in the world! And you, out there, are chained to what you have to do tomorrow morning!¡± in jail showed his position against the civilization and the world. After spending one night in jail, Thoreau eventually decided to face the real lives instead of avoiding them.

Thoreau met another prisoner, Bailey, who had waited for the chance to prove his guiltlessness and had never spoken up for himself to avoid trouble. Bailey barely understood what happened in the world or what were right things to be done. He stands for the victims, who can¡¯t get along with others and be protected by the authorities, like Henry Williams, an escapee and slave trying to get to Canada. On the other hand, Deacon Nehemiah ball, the chairman of the Concord School Committee, stuck to insisting on having an obedient attitude, taking the strict policy. He is the symbol of the power and violence.

Thoreau¡¯s brother, John, understood, supported, and ran the meadow school with Thoreau, but he died young from lockjaw. Besides John, the young lady Ellen Sewell also understood Thoreau¡¯s transcendentalism. She attended his lectures and attracted his attention. However, she didn¡¯t dare to stand up to the authority. One more woman is there, Lydian Emerson, who is Dr. Emerson¡¯s obedient wife. She, who is warm-hearted, tries to make Thoreau get in the mainstream. Despite her sympathy toward Thoreau, she maintains her position, observing the majority. Sam Stapler, the constable in Concord, has difficulties because he persuades Thoreau to pay his dues. Finally, he carries out the law and arrests Thoreau.

This play is not just for those who started to know new spirits, which are the transcendental movement and the abolition movement in the late 1800¡¯s, but for all of us who are educated, rationalized, and law-abiding in the societies, so that we can justify their own determinations. We always assimilate social conditions to be alike. We often forget thinking about what we are doing as keeping pace with others. This play is insightful enough to extend their point of view about the world and think over our attitudes toward societies. It deserves the best compliment and is recommended to read. Why don¡¯t you stop wandering around in your cage to see your outside world?

This is a great play to read before reading anything by Thoreau himself--it will help you to get a better understanding of him. Also great for Thoreau fans, or anyone who likes to read something worthwhile. This book is simply amazing, you will not regret reading it. I don't often cry when reading....but I'll admit that I did when reading this one. The authors of this play depicted Henry David Thoreau's life and philosophies so clearly yet with such an eloquent and touching manner. I loved this play 100% and I will definitely read it again!

Illustrated by Peter Fiore and edited by Steven Schnur, Henry David's House introduces young readers ages 5 to 9 to the life, thought and writings of Henry David Thoreau. Text and illustration collaborate to showcase the beauty, power and subtlety of solitary living withing the context of a nature-oriented retreat as represented by Thoreau's tiny house in the woods and on the shore of Walden Pond. Henry David's House is an enthusiastically recommended addition to school and community picturebook collections.

"Near the end of March I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond and began to cut down some tall white pines for timber..." Author, Steven Schnur has chosen several wonderfully engaging passages from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, in this elegant picture book, and young readers will really get a vivid sense of the hard, yet rewarding work of building his house, the few possessions needed to live comfortably, the beauty of the changing seasons, and living the simple life in harmony with nature. "Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time." Peter Fiore's lush and exquisite watercolor illustrations bring the splendor of Thoreau's existence at Walden Pond to life on the page, and together word and art evoke feelings of peace, quiet, and contentment. Perfect for readers 8-12, this book works well as a real aloud with D.B. Johnson's Henry Builds a Cabin, for younger children. With an editor's note at the end to fill in further biographical details about Thoreau and his time at Walden, Henry David's House is an evocative treasure to read, share, and most of all discuss. "We can never have enough of Nature."

Henry David's House is a picturebook adaptation by Steven Schnur of a part of Henry David Thoreau's classic nature book "Walden", told with only a limited amount of editing. Beautiful, slightly abstract yet full-color illustrations by Peter Fiore bring this classic thinker's words to vibrant life for young readers. Henry David's House is a superb introduction to a literary masterpiece for young readers, and its final message, "We can never have enough of Nature," reverberates in the hearts of all ages. Highly recommended for family, school, and community library picturebook collections.