The Highest Dream

When I was a junior high student, I read this book about a young woman just out of college, trying to figure out how she wanted to live her life. She started her career as a guide at the United Nations. I also remember a love story was part of the plot.

There was something about this book ...

The images in my mind that this book created left an impression long after I read the book, forgot the author, forgot the title, and grew up. I wracked my brain for this title off and on for years. I asked my favorite children's librarian from my days as a kid if she recognized the story. No. I asked my daughter the young adult librarian. No such luck. But last year I asked my friend Google a series of questions that finally narrowed my search -- and found the answer.

The book is The Highest Dream by Phyllis A. Whitney. It's copyrighted 1956 - the year before I was born. I read it about 12 years later.

This is the cover of the copy I had as a kid. I found a large print version online for a few bucks, and bought it. I finished reading it last weekend. Though all the elements I remembered about the book were there, and I'd remembered them accurately, I saw some new things this time.

The main difference I have now that I didn't have as a pre-teen was a sense of history. To me, the United Nations has "always" been around. But when the book was written, the notion that nations of all sizes would send delegates to come together, to listen to one another's needs, to help one another to grow their economies and to provide health care through food and vaccines was novel. The U.N. was formed in October 1945. That's just 11 years before The Highest Dream was published.

This passage in particular struck me as prescient / ironic / sad / hopeful:

Norman, a young man who works in broadcasting at the United Nations, is speaking to Mr. Somers, an iconic newsman, about the young man's father:

"I'm afraid Dad belongs to a school of thought that is, thank goodness, dying out. He feels that the United States is only safe behind its own walls and there is too great a risk in getting into the world's affairs."

Mr. Somers nodded. "It's surprising that there are still those who forget that no walls are high enough today. To live with honor means to take a risk. Yet in our eagerness to get away from this sort of thinking, the United States has sometimes rushed in with too much forceful enthusiasm and tried to change things too rapidly in other countries. I believe the United Nations does a wise job of starting where people are."

"Sometimes though," Norman said, "the progress is so slow that it all seems hopeless."

"That's when we look ahead to all we want to accomplish. But when we look back --" Mr. Somer's eye lighted - "we know how far we've come."

This passage could as easily be written today as in 1956. The U.S. is still talking of building walls and pushing against people that want to join our nation. There are those that still want to take care of just the legal citizens and let the others be damned. In 1956, Phyllis Whitney thought that approach was dying out. I find it sad and frightening to watch its recurrence.

In the early years, the concept that nations can work together to lift one another up was under attack. A world war had just ended. Many nations were licking their wounds and thought they should simply take care of their own within their own borders. Some people rooted for the United Nations to fail, just as the League of Nations had failed at the beginning of the 20th century.

Personally, I'm glad that over seventy years later, the concept of the United Nations is holding. Yes, there has been corruption in the ranks over the years. But the world is smaller now due to travel and technology. If walls couldn't hold then in 1956, they're even less likely to hold now.

The greater U.N. goals of listening to one another and counties-helping-countries has remained. Thank goodness there are times when the U.N. helps the U.S. cool its jets when our power goes to our head.

I suppose I have much of the same optimism as the heroine of the story, Lisa Somers. She sees that there's a lot of work to do to make our world a more fair, just, and peaceful place for all. There's a lot of good that can be done. I can do my little part, while keeping the bigger picture in my mind's eye.