A winter visit to a conservatory reminded her of a tropical island. Instead, she moved far away and worked as a librarian. In the evenings, she would sit on his lap, listening to his stories of faraway places.Īnd Alice told him, “When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea.” He agreed, but said she must do something more: “You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”Īlice grew up, but she did not get married. He was an artist and a woodcarver, and he doted on his granddaughter.

It was, perhaps, a little before the year 1870. When the elder Alice was a little girl, she lived in a port city, where the harbor was filled with sailing ships. It ends when she is very old, speaking to her great niece, who is also named Alice. The story in Miss Rumphius starts when Alice Rumphius was a little girl. Recently, I stumbled on the fact that Barbara Cooney dedicated Miss Rumphius “To Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children, sailors, and maidens.” And then, of course, I had to have it.Īnd I discovered that Miss Rumphius is a thing of wonder. At the time, though, I didn’t have anyone the right age to read it with or give it to, and so I left it on the shelf at the store. And so the book escaped my notice for many years.Īnd when I first read it, standing in a bookstore, I thought it was sweet and beautiful. It came out in 1982, when I was already an adult, but didn’t yet have children. I didn’t read Miss Rumphius when I was young, of course.

Miss rumphius