UNDER THE STARS
By David James Madden
PICTURES BY SUSAN STONE
Family gatherings at the cottage by the lake promise sweet memories every August. But this year will be different since the family suffered Grandpa's death last April. When the older child learns that Dad camped out on an island in the lake when he was a boy, the desire to do the same grows. In David James Madden's latest story, "Under the Stars" this is where the adventure begins and the process of healing continues.
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An Unknown Soldier
By David James Madden
It’s 1994. Peter Franklin has been having nightmares about his experiences in World War Two. His son Richard, a Vietnam war resister, doesn’t know about this. He has been keeping his distance from Peter for over twenty years. Richard’s wife, Jennifer, has never understood why her husband is so remote, not only from his father, but also to a distressing extent at times from her and their only child, Heidi. After bringing Heidi to college to begin her freshman year, Jennifer fears she has just begun an even lonelier chapter of her life with her emotionally detached husband. In response to this looming new reality, she abruptly invites Peter, without first telling Richard, to their lakeside cottage for the Labor Day weekend. This sets off a series of events that lead inexorably to revealing the secrets that father and son have kept, not only from each other, but from themselves as well. An Unknown Soldier is about the suffering war brings to ordinary people like ourselves and the redemption that love can always make possible.
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A QUAKER CUPBOARD
By David James Madden
Rather than cinnamon and nutmeg, A Quaker Cupboard contains the Quaker testimonies known as SPICES: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Service. Each of the SPICES consists of Bible verses pertaining to that testimony along with queries from some of the Yearly Meetings found throughout the United States. Queries are questions that have long been used to guide Friends in examining the best way for meetings and individuals to live lives in accord with the testimonies. Each section also contains the voices of ”weighty” Friends speaking in prose and poems on the testimonies that have comprised Quaker thought for over 350 years. For many Quakers, these testimonies offer three important functions: a reference for explaining basic Friendly beliefs to someone who associates Quakers mostly with cereal products and motor oil, a means for joining ourselves together in a fellowship that seeks to recognize and rely on God’s presence in the ongoing process of daily life, and a discipline for living fully in the present day while being mindful of the past influences on our identity.
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SPRUNG FROM THE SOIL
by David James Madden
Sprung from the Soil is a guided tour in poetry of Old Sturbridge Village. Written for young people in Grades 4 through 8, it is an informative and enjoyable way for anyone to enhance the experience of exploring early 19 th century life in America. Each poem has been researched through the Old Sturbridge Village website for historical accuracy. The poems have been arranged to follow the same order one could take when coming to the different exhibits after buying a ticket at the Visitor’s Center. I first visited Old Sturbridge Village with my fifth-grade class in 1959. That field trip kindled a lifelong love of history, which in turn led to my career as a public-school teacher. It is my hope that Sprung from the Soil will help another child to catch a glimpse of Old Sturbridge Village as I did for the first time on that long-ago November day. May he or she come to love this wonderful jewel of a museum and thereby the history of our country as I have all my life.