Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life

Celestrina, a little summer azure blue butterfly, has selected two sensitive, young sisters, Amanda and Kate, to discover a peculiar, thick root of an ancient hemlock tree on the path that leads up a mountain to the home of a famous writer and poet. Through decades the root grew up, over and back down, making the shape of a tiny door. Those who have passed by have found it interesting, if they have noticed it at all. But, when the little girls follow Celestrina through her "wee door to life," with heightened awareness they hear, see and respond to others hiking along the trail: a family with a handicapped child, an old woman and her husband with dementia, a young couple of Park Rangers worried about the endangered hemlock forests, and an excited class of children who have just visited Cannemara, the home and goat farm of famous American writer and poet, Carl Sandburg, nestled in the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Each meeting brings out the positive in human nature and hope for even the most fragile of human conditions through the eyes, optimism and wisdom of children. Once the little girls have seen and pondered some of life's challenges, Celestrina takes them back through the door, where they are introduced to a surprise visitor. Hand-in-hand, the sisters and this new friend walk down the path as he shares why Celestrina has had to leave them to complete the last obligation of her season. After the story is told, he turns to return to his family "and the goat out back," and little Kate and Amanda continue on to join their friends and family, waiting for them with the best apple pie in Henderson County at a picnic at the base of the mountain.