Rachel Lyman Field (September 19, 1894 – March 15, 1942) was an American novelist, poet, and author of children's fiction. She is best known for her Newbery Medal–winning novel for young adults, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, published in 1929.
Field was born in New York City, and, as a child, contributed to the St. Nicholas Magazine. She was educated at Radcliffe College. Her book Prayer for a Child was a recipient of the Caldecott Medal for its illustrations by Elizabeth Orton Jones. According to Ruth Hill Vigeurs in her introduction to Rachel Field's children's book Calico Bush, published in 1931, Field was "fifteen when she first visited Maine and fell under the spell of its 'island-scattered coast'. Calico Bush still stands out as a near-perfect re-creation of people and place in a story of courage, understated and beautiful."
Field was also a successful author of adult fiction, writing the bestsellers Time Out of Mind (1935), All This and Heaven Too (1938), and And Now Tomorrow (1942). She is also famous for her poem-turned-song "Something Told the Wild Geese". Field also wrote the English lyrics for the version of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria used in the Disney film Fantasia (film). Field married Arthur S. Pederson in 1935, with whom she collaborated in 1937 on To See Ourselves.
Field was a descendant of David Dudley Field. She died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, California on March 15, 1942, of pneumonia following an operation.
Rachel Field also wrote a story about the nativity of Jesus Christ titled "All Through the Night".
Something told the wild geese
It was time to go;
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, - 'snow'.
...
If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,
...
I'd like to be a lighthouse
All scrubbed and painted white.
I'd like to be a lighthouse
And stay awake all night
...
Elves can't catch cold and they never cry.
But any sunny day you may spy
On fields and lawns all under the sky
...
We sat together in the small, square room,
Late sunshine fell across the kitchen floor
In yellow patches. I could hear the boom
...