“The story of Trump was the story of how he tried to make himself a story. He was shameless, campy, and instructive: if you were willing to risk humiliation, the world could be yours. Trump became the objective correlative for the rising appetite for fame and notoriety.”
“Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat’s cradle were strung between them. ‘No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X’s….‘”
“Hello boys and girls. Hannah Baker here. Live and in stereo. No return engagements, no encore, and this time absolutely no requests. I hope you’re ready, because I’m about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why it ended. And if you’re listening to these tapes, you’re one of the reasons why.”
“I just... I caught myself thinking about it over and over. And then I realized that I was simply remembering it as something that was wrong with me. That was the story I was telling myself - that I was somehow inferior. Isn’t that interesting? The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”
“Where there is an absence of story, or perhaps a bad story, a good storyteller walks in and changes reality. He doesn’t critique the existing story, or lament about his boredom, like a critic. He just tells something different and invites other people into the new story he is telling.”
“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
“I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man.”
“My story is not a pleasant one; it neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams–like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.”
“Well this is my story- the story of me and my daughter, of my husband and my son and of two perfect strangers. It is the story of how one day, sixteen years ago, without notice, without warning, we were all struck by lightning.”
“Because you, mouse, can tell Gregory a story. Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”
“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.”
Over ten days, between Sunday 11 April 1954 and Easter Tuesday 20 April 1954, this story introduces big events into the lives of three sisters on the outskirts of Sydney.
The story is told through the alternating point of view of three sisters: Matilda (6), Frances (11) and Elizabeth (15). The events of a mysterious neighbor “who looks like a spy” (according to Matilda) are recounted alongside flashbacks and hardships dealing with their father, a veteran of World War II, who suffers from post-traumatic stress and often leaves his family for lengths of time.
As the story unravels, you learn that Toby lives in the Tree but his family was forced out of the Upper Branches to the bleak Lower Branches because his dad was a scientist who refused to reveal a secret that could destroy the lives of them all.
Mostly we see the story through Matilda’s point of view which, as Matilda is only six, provides an interesting perspective. Frances is eleven and Elizabeth is fifteen. Each day is heralded in with news headlines, so we read about new cases in the polio epidemic and the Petrov Affair. Against this backdrop, Frances worries about a school friend with polio, Elizabeth wonders about Mrs Petrov and Matilda observes all manner of things.
“Today Mathilda’s family went to the movies, the next day they went to the beach, then they had a picnic”. I kept wondering what the point of the story was - obviously had to do with the father but even that didn’t intrigue me in the slightest.”
Each story speaks wholeness and healing and wonder to the soul. I needed several tissues in each story to wipe away the tears: whether it was over Griffin’s misunderstanding that his baby sister had gone away because he didn’t love her enough or Perry’s mute solitude as he strives to understand why his mother would leave him in a suitcase stolen from a thrift shop and go to heaven without him.
Griffin, the main character, comes from a magical family. He was named after a mythical beast, afterall. The story opens with him going to school for the first time ever. He’s not fitting in so well and it’s really hard because all of his other siblings are attending upper school. He’s alone and way misunderstood.
The story falls flat on the scare factor as the wolves are only perceived as the usual unwelcome guests in the family’s home and the story is slow-paced as it took time for the family to decide to rush back to their home.
Basically the story revolves around Lucy (aka the girl who cried wolf), who tells her family about the wolves lurking behind the wallpapers. Her relatives however dismissed her fears as a product of her overactive imagination, and they are actually too engrossed into their own worlds to deal with Lucy: her mother (like any mother) is a personification of domestic order, her oblivious father plays tuba, and her annoying brother plays video games.
The art is bewitching, and the story is both funny and full of heart. A winner for the whole family, because yes, irl babies do crawl away (though generally not so far) and older siblings are heroes.
With an expert balance of humor, sentimentality, and hopefulness, this story is a work of art (side note: the first chapter of this book is the most spectacular chapter ever written in the history of chapters. i have probably read it over 100 times. its utter perfection).
The characters are likable and there are a few minor twists and turns that keep things interesting. This isn’t a very long book so naturally it didn’t take too long to read, that being said however, I did find it difficult to put down. I think that kids of all ages would be able to follow the story and enjoy solving the mystery along with the children in the story.
The story centers on a mother and her three children, a set of twins and their older sister, who have just moved into the old dilapidated house that has been in the family for years. Very soon after moving in, strange occurrences begin to happen and the children dedicate themselves to solving the mystery.
The silhouette illustrations are a delightful change. The story is in rhyme, so children will enjoy the beat of the story. During a picnic the babies crawl away, only to been noticed by a young boy. They had quite the adventure and many humorous situations. Never fear they young boy saves the day
“That children, is the story of the hard nut, and now you know why people say, that was a hard nut to crack, and why it is that nutcrackers are so ugly.”
It is a story about family, pets, animals, the sea and its numerous creatures, an island nestling a forest and its mysterious beings; an old man in his world building it to a kingdom of his own along with the orangutans and the gibbons; men and animals living together; separations and wars.
“This is the story of the truck roaring through the sleeping city and out into the country lanes, smashing through streetlamps and swinging from side to side and shattering shop windows and rolling to a halt when the police chased it.”
“I don’t know about luck, you young -er- but it’s brought me the best morning’s entertainment since General Patton got trod on by the regimental drummer’s horse.”
“Detective McSmogg was assigned to the case. He listened to their story. He scratched his chin. ‘Hmmmm,’ he said. ‘Hmmm’ ‘I think Miss Nelson is missing.’ Detective McSmogg would not be much help.”
“Read them and you hear echoes of one story inside another, then echoes of another inside that. So many have the same premise: once upon a time, there were three.”
“In the fading light of a snowy winter’s evening, with church bells and timepieces sounding the hour, a story has been set in motion by turns magical, terrifying, and urgent as a ticking clock. Karl, an apprentice clockmaker who has missed a deadline that may well be his last; Fritz, the write, who has begun a story he can’t control; and Gretl, the innkeeper’s daughter, whose courage will soon need to match her kindness.”
“Hari was shocked by the story but he did not like to be thought of as another orphan in Jagu’s care. He did have parents after all—even if one was a drunkard and the other an invalid—and a home, a proper home, not just a place on a railway platform.”
“Here is daddy. He is mostly nice. Almost too nice. Like tonight; although it’s late he reads a good, long story about a horse. Then he gives Alfie a hug and turns off the light when he leaves.”
“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.”
“This story in mime unfolds with lots of action and quiet charm. The deft line drawings, tinted with watercolor washes, indicate character traits and emotions with great sensitivity to form, movement, and detail.”
“Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what it’s like to behold a gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the beauty is so deep it pierces us with longing. For what? For life as it was meant to be. Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow our hearts were created for.”
The story of Miranda and Daniel are one that many children today, more so than ever, have to deal with because of the divorce of their parents. What made this story so special was the writing was so real.
In this story of wonder and initiation during WWI on a small island group off of the western shores of Great Britain, a boy and a girl learn about rumors in small towns and destroy some demons of their village’s history.
Ten-year-old Jenny’s new foster mother doesn’t live up to her expectations until Jenny discovers that there are more important things in life than lavish gifts and fancy homes.
“The pupil blazes like fire as it fills the eye. But no matter how fat it gets, the boy never looked away. When everything has become pitch black, he discover what nobody has ever seen in the wolf’s eye before: the pupil is alive. There, staring and growling at the boy, is a black she-wolf snuggled up with her cubs. ”
“The had unearthed the sensational story of how Atkinson had found a caterpillar in his cabbage; but as it had happened the term before last, they felt that this could hardly be headlined as late news.”
The story is adorable, with a fantastic cast of characters (especially if you do the voices). The best part is that it really nails that exaggeration-that-helps-kids-to-think-rationally type of humour that so many children’s books aim for
“If there were no walls to shut out the sea, the whole country would be covered with water; and if that were so, then there wouldn’t be any Holland, or any Holland Twins, or any story.”
“The Young Boy and his Great-Grandfather fill the rest of the week this story spans discussing the question around which many of the fables turn: what makes a hero?”
“Someone is getting your story wrong. In your story, the one you know by heart, none of this makes sense. Not where this story began, not where it’s going. And certainly not where it’s threatening to end.”
“I do remember,” he said, “only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again. Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.”
In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull’s egg by mistake, and the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back into safety and say, “How interesting, and did she?” when—well, you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; 1st Mate, P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him.