“Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there’s a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.”
“This is the dystopian story of Toby Lolness,where his life is turned upside down,with the whole tree against him and his family for crimes they did not commit and a secret that could change the very tree forever.”
“If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else so unhappy again.”
Caldecott Medal winner Peggy Rathmann has created a highly original story told in a lilting text and a bold new style with classic black silhouettes against stunning skies of many colors that change and glow as afternoon turns into evening.
“Everything and anything in life was bearable as long as she had this. What did it matter if she had to wear that absurd uniform and go to that snooty school. At the weekends she could be a squirrel, or a cat, or rabbit, or lolloping wolfhound or busy, rat-hunting terrier.”
“She lifted her hand, and there was no hand, just the great, brown paw lifting to her face to feel the long snout and the round, furry ears. Tess had turned into a bear.”
“He was not the same and would never be again like he had been. That was one of the true things, the new things. And the other one was the he would not die, he would not let death in again.”
″..as the landscape changes from a modern built-up townscape, through to farm land, and finally back to the wilderness of the aborigines. The one thing that stays constant is a much loved old fig tree.”
“On the fateful day Old Tom arrives at Angela Throgmorton’s doorstep, Angela knows that things will never be the same. She lovingly raises the little feline monster as her own, but all he does is drive her crazy.′
“Alix also found herself reorganizing her lifestyle around Emira, despite the fact that she didn’t have an explicit reason to. If Alix went shopping, she took the tags off clothes and other items immediately so Emira couldn’t see how much she’d spent, even though Emira wasn’t the type to show interest or ask.”
“Now daddy has read a story, gotten the toothbrush, brought a drink, changed the sheet on the bed, cleaned up the water, brought the potty, looked for a lion, found teddy, and gotten very tired.”
“The change comes about when it becomes clear that the objects of Victor’s passion, the magnificent arrowhead jets that roar across the Norfolk landscape from a nearby RAF airfield, may be withdrawn from service. ”
“But in spite of all their pleading, the elephant was determined never to be a little white hen again.
‘It isn’t that I want to be unfriendly,’ he said, ‘but I think it’s much more fun being an elephant.‘”