KIRKUS REVIEW:
"In the sad, bad, mad, mod world, there will be those who will happily adjust their bifocals to the rustic, restorative musings of Mrs. Dykeman which begin with an elegy to the elementals (""a fresh crust of bread"" or a ""clump of fragile green ferns"") and ascend to the triumphant assertion--""I just love being a woman. . . especially in the spring. . . . I can buy a hat the color of dandelions and decorated with a froth of flowers."" Her whole book is indeed a froth of flowers along with homebody details on anything from curtains to calendars, on having a son wear a starched shirt--or sending him away to school, on travels here and in Europe (Biarritz to Dachau). Throughout it all the abundant sentiment is anti-materialist and to a degree anti-modern, as aromatic as sassafras and sometimes as sticky as her native honeysuckle." [Ouch!]

North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame:
"Look to This Day (1969) is a book about wilma Dykeman Stokely's own life and convictions... Her many honors included a Guggenheim Fellowship and the 1985 North Carolina Award for Literature. She held the honorary title of Tennessee State Historian from 1981 until she died. A popular lecturer, she taught a spring course for many years at the University of Tennessee. Sally Buckner relates in her anthology Our Words, Our Ways that: “Ms. Dykeman urges students to learn to listen and look at the world with keen eyes and ears, then apply themselves diligently. She also draws a keen distinction between aptitude and attitude. ‘The talent comes from developing the aptitude,’ she has said. ‘The writer comes from developing the attitude.'”