Nature’s Children

Book Review by Christina Francine

Author:: Juliette de Bairacli Levy
Ash Tree Publishing 1997 (Reprint Edition)
PB 181
ISBN # 0-9614620-8-6
Soft Cover $11.95

No doubt giving a child roots from the burdock bush growing in your backyard may raise a few eyebrows. How about plantain from your front yard for diaper rash? And what would your mother-in-law think? Would your neighbor call the authorities if they saw you place your diaperless child in a cradle lined with sphagnum moss? You could tell them of course, if their curiosity got the best of them that The New York Unit of Herb Society of America lists this moss as an antiseptic and absorbent. You could also attempt to explain how you’re raising your children naturally, providing lots of fresh air, using what nature abundantly provides. On the other hand maybe people wouldn’t think you so odd after all. It’s no secret more people are looking to natural alternatives to healing and eating. Maybe your best-friend will ask for your advice.

One mother who lived her life and raised her children very naturally is the respected elder of contemporary herbology, Juliette de Bairacli Levy. She’s also known as a gypsy and “Nature girl.” Her beliefs, wisdom, and desire to share her knowledge and experiences led her to write this book. She wanted to help people looking to heal and raise their own children naturally. Levy guides readers through the health of a mother, pregnancy, birthing, nursing, raising children, provides a list of simple natural foods, and with the needs of a mother’s and children’s spirit, soul, and feelings. This author explains how to raise healthy children without drugs and through her experience and the lore from many other cultures she learned while traveling throughout the world. Levy in turn is known all over the world for her theories and techniques for the natural care of dogs, goats, horses, and other animals also.

Written as Levy’s children were born and she first found publication in an English edition in December 1970; then later, in the spring of 1971, and later still, in the United States in 1996.

The tone is like receiving advice from a caring Aunt who is open and tells it like it is. So, the fact that the book is written in first-person, is just right.

Sprinkled throughout the book randomly are delightful black and white photographs of Levy, her children as they grow, animals, and of different people from various countries.

Levy’s opinion: “At the heart of all, for Nature children, there will always remain a core of love for natural life, for the fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grains, for the sun and the rain, the moon and the wind, for snow – and for beautiful things in general, because their bodies and minds were formed out of such things when in the mother’s womb and in infancy and childhood.”

Contents of the book include:

* Author’s Foreword to the Revised Edition
* Introduction by Helen and Scott Nearing

1. The Mother

2. The Father

3. Birth and Lactation

4. The Infant

5. The Child

6. Nature Medicine

7. Recipes From Many Lands

8. Conclusion

9. Afterward

* Appendix 1: Resources
* Appendix 2: Botanical Names of Herbs
* Recipe Index
* Index

Excerpts from the book:

* Acne – Treat acne internally with a cleansing diet (page 78). Externally, bathe the affected skin with a standard brew of meadowsweet or elderblossom, or with buttermilk. Then apply extract of witch hazel or a standard brew of meadow marigold flowers.

* Headaches – Headaches should be treated internally as well as externally; use a cleansing diet (page 78). In severe headache give a complete fast for several days allowing only fruit drinks, and nerve-soothing drinks of lime blossom (linden) or red clover teas. Strong mint tea should also be drunk, and cotton cloths soaked in cold mint tea with a little vinegar added should be bound over the brow. Or a pulp of cucumber can be placed over the brow and kept in place with a cotton scarf dampened with cold water.

Don’t be surprised if while reading Nature’s Children you pause long enough to go for a walk around your yard, suggest a rain bath to your children or suggest they plant a garden with you. You may wonder later why you didn’t start this years ago. If you long to get your child and self away from the drugs, food additives, video-games, and out into the fresh air; closer to nature and natural, this is the book to read. Levy will guide you gently along the sweet, green path.