CMP Review 2025-07-18

July 18, 2025

You probably know the Charlotte Mason quote “The flowers, it is true, are not new; but the children are; and it is the fault of their elders if every new flower they come upon is not to them a Picciola, a mystery of beauty to be watched from day to day with unspeakable awe and delight.” from page 53 of Home Education.

But do you know the story of Picciola? It is a heart-warming tale about a plant growing up through the paving stones in a yard of a prison in France, lovingly tended by an innocent man who is jailed there.

James Baldwin retold this story in the penultimate chapter of his Fifty Famous Stories published in 1896. It’s just a couple of pages long, but really quite lovely. And a famous man’s wife makes a one-line appearance in the story.

Baldwin’s retelling was based on the novel Picciola written by X. B. Saintine, a French dramatist and novelist, and it was published in France in 1836. Have any of you read that original? I’d like to try to get my hands on a copy! A quick search tells me it has been translated into many languages.

At any rate, I saw my own Picciola growing in a crack on the bridge here in town, and it reminded me of both Mason’s quote and Baldwin’s story which we read way back in our first year of homeschooling.

@antonella.f.greco