A Mind with Wings

Its July 4, 1845. A soft-spoken young man named Henry David Thoreau has carefully constructed a small, simple cabin in the woods overlooking Walden Pond. For the next two years, his closest companions will be the chickadees, the woodchucks, and the quiet pines of the Walden Woods.

Henry is twenty-eight years old, and his life has not been easy. His brother John—his closest friend and companion—has died. The only woman he ever loved has rejected him. On this day he has come to Walden in search of truth—not the truth taught in schools or in church, but the truth he can feel dwelling deep within him.

Henry opens his journal and begins to write:

I went to the woods because I wished to
live deliberately, to front only the essential
facts of life, and see if I could not
learn what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Follow Henry into the woods and out again—through a courageous American life that has changed our world for the better.

For ages 12 and up.