Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of the Sunday service. Here is their list for the Sunday, June 14, 2026 at 11 a.m. service on “Walking on Sunshine: Opening Our Hearts to a Playful Summer”, featuring Janet Pivnick. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books, and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv, 2008, 155.41 LOU
From LibraryThing: “I like to play indoors better because that’s where all the electrical outlets are, reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.
As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.
In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply – and find the joy of family connectedness in the process. …”.
2. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams, 2016, 294 LAM
From LibraryThing: “… From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.
Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life”.
3. Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach, 1995, 158.12 BAN
From LibraryThing: “… is responsible for introducing two hugely popular concepts – the “Gratitude Journal” and the term “Authentic Self.” With daily inspirational meditations and reflections, the Simple Abundance phenomenon became a touchstone for a generation of women, helping them to reclaim their true selves, find balance during life’s busiest moments, and rediscover what makes them truly happy.
Simple Abundance‘s powerful messages are needed now more than ever, as we navigate the discord and stress instigated by a constant stream of “breaking news” cycles, and our 24/7 social media culture. … address the needs of a new generation, with her signature candor, wit, and wisdom that made her a trusted and compassionate confidant for millions of women.
…, Sarah’s work celebrates quiet joys, simple pleasures, and well-spent moments and reminds us how to find the beauty in the everyday”.
4. A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles, edited by M. J. Ryan, 1994, 291.4 RYA
From LibraryThing: “Today there is a deep hunger for connection with ourselves, with nature, and with others, …. What A Grateful Heart offers, from a wide variety of spiritual disciplines and secular perspectives, is a way of satisfying that hunger by setting aside time before we eat to acknowledge the blessings in our lives. When we give thanks, we take our place in the great wheel of life, recognizing our connection to one another and to all of creation. … Drawing from a range of religious and cultural practices, the 365 blessings in this book celebrate friendship, love, peace, reconciliation, the body, nature, joy, and appreciation of the moment. … includes quotations from Martin Luther King Jr., Thich Nhat Hanh, Gandhi, Rumi, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Denise Levertov, the Bible, and the Tao Te Ching, among many others.”.
5. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold, 1949, 508.73 LEO
Gift of Carolyn and Max Gaebler, UCV minister. From LibraryThing: “… praised in the New York Times Book Review as “full of beauty and vigor and bite”, … combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America’s relationship to the land. As the forerunner to such important books as Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finch’s The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was more than seventy years ago.”.
6. Wired for music: a search for health and joy through the science of sound by Adriana Barton, 2022, 781 BAR
Donated by Leslie Hill. From LibraryThing: “… captivating blend of science and memoir, a health journalist and former cellist explores music as a source of health, resilience, connection, and joy. Music isn’t just background noise or a series of torturous exercises we remember from piano lessons. In the right doses, it can double as a mild antidepressant, painkiller, sleeping pill, memory aid–and enhance athletic performance while supporting healthy aging. Though music has been used as a healing strategy since ancient times, neuroscientists have only recently discovered how melody and rhythm stimulate core memory, motor, and emotion centers in the brain. But here’s the catch: We can tune into music every day and still miss out on some of its potent effects. … Traveling from state-of-the-art science labs to a remote village in Zimbabwe, her investigation gets to the heart of music’s profound effects on the human body and brain. Blending science and story, Wired for Music shows how our species’ age-old connection to melody and rhythm is wired inside us.”.
7. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, 2000, FIC KIN
From LibraryThing: “… a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives in southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. … Over the course of one long summer, these characters find connections to one another, and to the land, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.”.
8. Sophia Lyon Fahs: A Biography by Edith F. Hunter, 1966, 921 FAH
Gift of Mary Hamilton. Published by Beacon Press. From UUA.org: “”Celebrating Unitarian Women in History” Feb 16, 2016 – Notable Universalist educators, such as Sophia Lyon Fahs, revolutionized religious education by emphasizing a child’s natural wonder and engagement over rote memorization, paving the way for experiential learning and interactive spiritual play.”
9. Reflections at Walden: Selected Writings of Henry David Thoreau by Henry David Thoreau, 1968, 818.4 THO
The key Unitarian book about a healing delight in nature.
10. Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (A Henry Book) by D.B. Johnson, 2000, J+ JOH
Gift of Mary McDonald. From the Wikipedia summary: “… is about two friends who have very different approaches to life. When the two agree to meet one evening in Fitchburg, which is thirty miles away, Henry decides to walk while his friend plans to work all day to earn the fare for a train ticket. Both friends are curious to see who will be the first to arrive in Fitchburg. Although Henry’s friend arrives first, Henry has enjoyed the sights and nature during his walk to Fitchburg, has splashed in a river and eaten blackberries. …”
11. Emerson in His Journals by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1984, 814.3 EME
Emerson wrote “It is a happy talent to know how to play,” in his journal of April 19, 1835 – Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol.3, 1833-1835