I Wonder as I Wander - Hardcover

Swain, Gwenyth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802852149 ISBN 13: 9780802852144

Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co, 2003

Synopsis

In this fictional account of the folk song's origin, a girl writes a song that expresses her feelings about Jesus while dealing with the loss of her mother and life on the roads of Appalachia after her father becomes an itinerant preacher.

About this title

From the Author

Of all the folksongs collected and recorded by folklorist and balladeer John Jacob Niles, none is as haunting and beautiful as the Appalachian tune "I Wonder As I Wander." The story behind this Christmas song is sketchy. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Niles happened upon an open-air revival of sorts, on the courthouse square in Murphy, North Carolina. Niles had collected many songs from people who lived in the surrounding hills and hollows, but he was still surprised to hear a pure young voice sing alone, with no accompaniment, these words:

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus, our Saviour, did come for to die
For poor orn’ry people like you and like I
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

Or all of God’s angels in Heaven to sing—
He surely could have had it, ‘cause he was the King.

The singer’s name was Annie Morgan, and she earned twenty-five cents each time she repeated the short song for Niles. As usual, he scribbled the words and music in his own shorthand into a notebook until he could sing the song back to the young girl with no mistakes. At the time, Niles didn’t think to ask Annie Morgan where she’d heard the tune or where she was going. And later, when he wanted to learn more, she had left without a trace. I Wonder As I Wander is a work of fiction that continues the wondering; it tells the story of Annie Morgan and how her song might have come to be.

About the Author

A former independent bookseller (Ruminator Books) and editor (Carolrhoda Books, Inc.), Gwenyth Swain has written a number of nonfiction titles for middle-grade readers. I Wonder As I Wander is her first picture book and first work of fiction. Swain is the youngest of five sisters and the only one to live outside her native state of Indiana. She writes partly to let the folks back home know that she’s keeping busy through the long, cold Minnesota winters and partly because writing is the best job she can ever imagine having. Swain studied French and history, attended library school, and then learned the art of making books by hand at Mills College in Oakland, California. Her how-to book Bookworks: Making Books by Hand, cowritten with Minnesota Center for Book Arts, was a Minnesota Book Award winner. Her children’s biographies of figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Johnny Appleseed have been praised as "insightful," "smoothly written," and "enjoyable as well as informative." Ms. Swain’s first novel—Chig and the Second Spread (Delacorte/Random House)—will be published in November 2003. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband, Vinnie, and their two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0802852149
• ISBN 13: 9780802852144
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Himler Ronald