Hi, I’m Mike Nicholson, a blessed husband to my wonderful wife and a happy father to our two daughters. Our family discovered George MacDonald about seven years ago in our small Tennessee town’s library, actually on the library discard shelf where you can purchase the library’s “retired” books for a quarter. Scanning this shelf one afternoon I observed a paperback copy of The Princess and the Goblin. I purchased it immediately as it sounded, from the title alone, like this would be an interesting novel to read out loud as a family. I was totally unprepared for how wonderful, rich, and spiritual the book would prove to be. The entire family loved it and it immediately reminded us, the parents anyway, of the many Christian themes we’d seen explored in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
We absolutely needed to purchase more George MacDonald books and so we ordered more of his works online. Of his children’s fantasy, the writings of his that resonated most deeply with us were of course the Irene and Curdie books and also At the Back of the North Wind. In that book, Little Diamond’s sense of innocence and his character traits of honor and integrity are absolutely captivating. Of course, you are rooting for his friendship with the mysterious North Wind and all she represents. I, perhaps naively and over simplistically, state in my song, Little Diamond, that this novel is “a story about a boy and the will of God”. The paths, not just the destination, this book takes you on are simply magical. It is a book that I am firmly convinced will leave the reader a better person for having spent valued time with it.
Lyrics
This is a story about a boy and the will of God,
About a boy who would travel far,
The great distance, far beyond the heart.
And his name was Diamond,
And he came out of London,
And he rode on the North Wind.
She came to lead him from his house,
He go distracted by his name-sake horse and so
He couldn’t see her till days later
But when he did he was so very grateful
But this strange friend became a wolf,
She sunk a ship, she changes size, what’s more,
She flew him places he ain’t never been before and so
She gained his love as well.
Chorus:
Little Diamond, at her back is the way to find the country you’ll stay in.
Diamond’s health would come and go
And so would North Wind, the two somehow linked, you know.
He drove a cab and he picked up reading,
He rhymed lovingly to his two siblings
And the street sweeper should be indebted;
He pulled her from misery to his homestead.
But as one of God’s children he wasn’t made for this world.
You know he had to travel home.
Chorus.
Little Diamond, you’ve been called home to the country at the back of the North Wind.
Chorus.