The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods Paperback – April 3, 2001

Highly recommend this book, especially today when we need positive role models and inspiration. Not that Julia Butterfly Hill is preachy -- not at all. But her story speaks for itself. It's also very interesting and well written! Easy, inspiring, enjoyable read.

Great, easy read and compelling story.

Small book but with so much life. Fascinating read! Luna's story inspired me to be aware of what's happening to the nature around us.

This is an amazing story. I think if you are of one extreme political view or the other in regards to the redwoods, or environmentalism, you will be softened somewhat after reading Julia's odyssey. It is largely written from a place of neutrality (the heart), and does not "preach", nor is it angry in tone. I am a Northern Californian myself, and after experiencing personally the enormous anger/hate that goes on between BOTH sides of the spectrum, i.e. the logging industry, and the environmentalists, her book was very refreshing. It was as if, by climbing the tree, and remaining in it for so long, Julia stood on the fulcrum of both extremes.I remember one part of the book where, after a confrontation with one of the loggers, she lowered down a photograph of herself dressed in a formal gown. Seeing her as someone he could identify with, and not just as a tree-hugging-hippy-out-to-ruin-his-life-by-taking his livelihood away, shifted him.It may be that I believe Julia is a saint, simply because I'm a tree fanatic. But I feel she has really helped shift a lot of the stagnatic energy on both sides of the tree agenda. She has a wonderful heart, and I believe most of you will be able to identify with her, just as that logger did.The only reason I did not give this book 4 stars, is that there are parts of the writing which seem repeated or slow. But definately, read this book... it is a very unique story!Julia is an inspiration to ANYONE who feels like he or she cannot make a difference being just one person.

Very happy with this purchase

Julia Butterfly Hill, an extraordinary woman, has written an equally extraordinary book detailing her two years living on a small platform hundreds of feet up "Luna," an ancient California redwood. What drives a young woman to give so much of herself, even risking her life, for the sake of a tree? The answers are fascinating, and reveal how much more is at stake than only a single redwood.Julia Hill is that rare individual: a political activist who is above partisan rancor; a moralist who transcends ideologies. Because of this, she draws fire from all sides, since she is bound to offend those who offer their allegiance to political orthodoxies. But here she writes a compelling and vivid tale that is wonderfully cinematic and sparkles with her wit and insight, more than justifying her new incarnation as one of the brightest and most personable spokespersons for environmentalism one would hope to find.In "Legacy of Luna," we learn how this itinerant preacher's daughter came to a fuller awareness of what was important in life after her brush with death in a terrible auto accident. She finds her higher cause in the old-growth forests of the West Coast, where environmentalists desperately place their own bodies in harm's way in an effort to stop overlogging. Like an early Christian aescetic, she soon found herself suspended in the air, nearer to heaven, hoping for a miracle, while the world watched. Defying all attempts by the Maxxam Corporation to force her from her perch, surviving storms, cold, and loneliness, Julia describes in this remarkable book exactly why the old-growth forests are worth preserving and shares the lessons she learned from her long ordeal. She writes about the media frenzy that developed, about the celebrities who offered support, and how she maintained her sanity and perspective in dealing with the whirlwind her action created.Heroes come from the strangest places and sometimes do what appear to be the strangest things. The truest heroes are those who inspire the rest of us to heroic living, and no one who reads this book with an open heart will fail to be inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill's saga of courage and love.