The Permanence of Waves

What a beautiful story with excellent pictures! I have a new outlook on natural things. I no longer pick up the pretty stone to store in my drawer of forgotten things. I leave it where it belongs.

Throughout the book I found myself inside a delicious memory I always wanted but never knew how to set up in my mind's daydreams. If you spend enough time inhaling and exhaling the lazy days of summer, you might find yourself gathering memories and souvenirs. Or perhaps long walks in the woods gently pull your gaze toward towering trees that seem to dance with the wind one minute, then appear serious and solemn the next. If you have a little time to reflect, do you wonder if those trees have a life just begging to share with you? Are they telling you something? Strolling along the beaches of summer, we all pick up a stone, a shell, something that is reminiscent of our time there...and eventually forgotten or replaced with something else when summer fades. We step over a blanket of tiny, frothy pebbles, wade through tall, soft, swishy summer grasses, relish our connection to fathers and mothers of long ago and hear the waves ushering their white caps into the sandy shores. This book takes one on a journey, opening our spirit to sacred-like possibilities. Reading page after page, I discovered that all things I loved during the summers at the lake took on a palatable and surprisingly tangible soul. Never did I "see" faces on all the stones along the shore. As the words began to divulge such insightful splendor, I began to believe in the faces, the spirits and beauty of each stone, the tree's voices and the rushing waves that never let us down. The author allowed my mind to dabble in the art of pondering and puttering. It makes me anxious to share all her notions with my children and their children. If the reader doesn't have a cottage by the lake from which to relive memories, they do now.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly and have read it to my daughter. Battle Lake is such a huge part of our family that we can imagine the story taking place before our eyes!

Olive and Lottie head for a lake cottage to visit Olive's grandfather. Olive is determined to carry out her mother's last wishes to care for her aging grandfather. She is disturbed by her grandfather's seeming unwillingness to accept her support. Then Olive discovers a secret journal he has left for his great granddaughter Lottie. Within the pages of this personal journal Olive learns to face her own rigidity and let go of what was never really hers. In "The Permanence Of Waves", author and exhibiting artist C.J. Clark has written imaginative and deftly presented fable with an underlying message about life. Enhanced with eleven of the author's beautiful drawings especially created for "The Permanence Of Waves", this is a beautiful little 140-page story that is particularly recommended reading for anyone who appreciates original storytelling at its very best.