Beyond the Horizon

by Peter Lucia

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The year was 1963. In my sixth grade class at Bradley School, the title of a book - Beyond the Horizon - became a bit of an obsession with me. It was one of many books on a hip-high shelf of blond wood; and all I could see of it was its green and turquoise spine with the curious title. There appeared to be a little green mountain and shrubs on the spine as if this were a part of a larger landscape that continued on the front cover. "Beyond the Horizon" ... "Beyond the Horizon" É these words enthralled me, gave me a feeling of sweet inebriation that lifted me out of ordinary time. Could it be that this book would reveal the secret to me? What secret is that? Why, the secret of ... of ... the secret!

I was too shy a child to get up, pull the book from its slot and examine its cover and contents. (After all, the book was not a part of our classroom work.) So day after day I wondered what its contents held. What glories might be revealed to me if I could examine it!

One day, our teacher decided that there was nothing much to do, so she called a study period. She said to everybody, "Go to the shelf and get a book and read it for the remainder of the class." I couldn't believe this was happening. At last, my opportunity!

It was then that I finally held Beyond the Horizon in my hands. The green cover certainly was attractive: There were numerous well-detailed figures in a cartoon style wearing costumes of various periods. The central figures were a funny sultan in a striped turban and a pretty member of his harem, both riding in a balloon. Overall, it was a busily magical design that scattered people and fairly tale props against that familiar green and turquoise landscape.

Despite its appealing cover, something told me that the book was not what I thought it might be. I was right. It turned out to be a so-called classroom reader - "regular ol'" children's stories and poems (even if names like Longfellow, Sandburg, Baum and Oliver Wendell Holmes were included among the many unrecognizable names of authors).

I read a story (I don't remember which), still under the influence of the gently drunken rapture that had drawn me to the book. But it was obvious that the work was not going to take me where I wanted to go.

CUT TO:

The year 2001. I'm on the Internet browsing for old, out-of-print books that I needed or wanted to see again. I had had success in locating titles through Alibris.com and Abebooks.com., two sites dedicated to finding old volumes. The memory of Beyond of Horizon suddenly came to me. Why hadn't I thought of looking for it before? Well, I searched the book and found the title, one copy. I couldn't really be sure, though, if it was the right book - Beyond the Horizon is a fairly common expression. But then I saw the words classroom reader.

Well, I bought it. I think it cost me twelve bucks. And in a week's time there it was in my trembling hands again - a little piece of personal history - after 38 years.

CUT TO:

January 13, 2002. That's today. As I finish this very essay, I take note of the first poem in the book, a poem I don't recall ever seeing before:

Here's an adventure! What awaits

Beyond these closed, mysterious gates?

Whom shall I meet, where shall I go?

Beyond the lovely land I know?

Above the sky, across the sea?

What shall I learn and feel and be?

Open, strange doors, to good or ill!

I hold my breath a moment still

Before the magic of your look.

What shall you do to me, O book?

***

Note: Compilers and editors of Beyond the Horizon are Nila Banton Smith, Hazel C. Hart and Clara Belle Baker. Joseph Giordano created the cover art. The poem Adventure is Anonymous. The book is Copyrighted 1960 and 1964, the Bobbs-Merrill Company,

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