LIKE THE WILLOW TREE

“I am desolate,” Lydia Pierce declares to her diary on her birthday, Oct. 4, 1918, because the motion-picture houses have been closed due to Spanish flu. In short order, she has great cause for desolation: Her parents and baby sister have all died, and she and her brother have been deposited with the community of Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, where in accordance with Shaker custom they are separated by gender and forced to relinquish their personal possessions. But Chosen Land is a balm to Lydia’s spirit, and she adjusts quickly to the rhythms of life there. Working within the confines of the Dear America format, Lowry pens a tender, affecting portrait of a devout community in transition—one tenet of the Shaker creed is celibacy. The Sisters and Brothers emerge a little on the saintly side, but the author endows them with enough humanity that readers will join in Lydia’s concern for their continued prosperity. As befits the setting and subject, the narrative is simple and heartfelt, presenting a snapshot of a unique American community. (Historical fiction. 8-12)