"For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the...

Text and illustrations describe some of the special places that one can go to be quiet and alone and to imagine, such as a woods, a seashore, a library, or inside oneself.

Henry D. Thoreau (1817–62) was an American author, naturalist, poet, and philosopher. He wrote many essays and books, including Civil Disobedience, Walking, and The Maine Woods, among others. John Updike (1932–2009) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and poet. One of the most influential and compelling books in American literature, Walden is a vivid account of the years that Henry D. Thoreau spent alone in a secluded...