"Your attitude determines your direction." -- Unknown --

Harlem by Langston Hughes

Harlem

by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

"Your mind is a powerful thing. When you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change." -- Unknown -- 

"We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond." -- Marcel Proust --

"I am but what I was born to be." -- Dinah Craik --

"Where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again." -- Anne Frank --

Pagoo

 

Title: Pagoo

Author: Holling Clancy Holling

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 6 - 18+

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    An intricate study of tide pool life is presented through the story of Pagoo, a hermit crab.

"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe --

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

"You were made perfectly to be loved." -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- 

"Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do." -- Gregory Maguire --

 “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” — J.K. Rowling --

 “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald --

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Title: Island of the Blue Dolphins

Author: Scott O'Dell

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 8 - 16

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as San Nicolas Island. Blue Dolphins splash in the water surrounding it, sea otters play in the kelp beds, and seabirds roost in its crags. Once, Indians also lived on the island - until one day they decided to leave and sailed to the east. 

    A young girl was left behind.

    Karana is that girl. Year after year, she waits for the ship to come back. But it never does. Finally, she realizes she must make a fateful choice: follow her people on her own or remain alone on the island for the rest of her life. 

 “My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.” ― Martin Luther

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

"Wild animals are less wild and more human than many humans of this world." -- Munia Khan --

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." -- Hippolyte A. Taine --

"Nothing is impossible to a willing heart." -- John Heywood --

 “One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” — Carl Sagan -- 

The Little Prince

 

Title: The Little Prince

Author: Antoine de Saint Exupery

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 12 - 18+

    The little prince lived alone on a tiny planet no larger than a house. He owned three volcanoes, two active and one extinct. He also owned a flower, unlike any flower in all the galaxy, of great beauty and of inordinate pride. It was this pride that ruined the serenity of the little prince's world and started him on the interplanetary travels that brought him to Earth, where he learned, finally, from a fox, the secret of what is really important in life.

    There are few stories that in some way, in some degree, change the world forever for their readers. This is one.

 “Tell me what you listen to, and I’ll tell you who you are.” ― Tiffanie DeBartolo

Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin

Two-Headed Calf

by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this

freak of nature, they will wrap his body

in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north 

field with his mother. It is a perfect

summer evening: the moon rising over

the orchard, the wind in the grass. And

as he stares into the sky, there are

twice as many stars as usual.

"Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and - if things don't work out - take another shot." -- Unknown --

"Be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatama Gandhi --

April 5, 2025; Update

    Hello, dear readers! Today is a very special day - it's the 1 year anniversary of this blog! Yay!!

    To celebrate, the first 3 readers to comment on this post can each share their 3 favourite quotes - and they might just make it onto this blog!

    Thanks to all those who enjoy this blog, and I hope this past year of posts have been just as lovely for you readers. Thank you for all the views, as they are the things that help me keep this blog going strong. 

"Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others." -- Buddha --

 “It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.” ― George Eliot

The Jungle Book

Title: The Jungle Book

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Rating: ★★★★★

Ages: 8 - 14

    "The Tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan. 'The man's cub is mine. . . . He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs, he shall hunt thee.'"

    When Mowgli the young Man-cub wanders into the jungle one day, he is adopted by the wolf pack. With help from Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Black Panther, they teach him the laws of the jungle. Mowgli's fearless adventures are featured in the enduring stories and poems of The Jungle Book, along with tales of many other favorite characters, such as the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Toomai of the Elephants.

 “Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” – George Washington

"If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings." -- Welsh Proverb --