"In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take." -- Lewis Carroll --

"Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald --

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." -- Henry David Thoreau --

The Runaway Dolls

 

Title: The Runaway Dolls

Author: Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin

Illustrator: Brian Selznick

Rating: ★★★★★

Age Category: Middle Grade

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    "Fast-paced, satisfyingly developed, the book is doubly enjoyable for its foundation in a solidly imagined doll culture." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Life is like a blank canvas. It's up to you how you want to paint it." -- Unknown --

Sonnet 4 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 4

by William Shakespeare

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,

Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, either way you're right." -- Henry Ford --

"Grandfathers are for loving and fixing things." -- Unknown --

"To act is to affirm the worth of an end." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. --

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?" -- Rumi --

Bridge to Terabithia

Title: Bridge to Terabithia

Author: Katherine Paterson

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Middle Grade

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Jess Aarons' greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. He's been practicing all summer and can't wait to see his classmates' faces when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new girl boldly crosses over to the boys' side of the playground and outruns everyone. 

    That's not a very promising beginning for a friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. Leslie has imagination. Together, she and Jess create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations set the only limits. Then one morning a terrible tragedy occurs. Only when Jess is able to come to grips with this tragedy does he finally understand the strength and courage Leslie has given him. 

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." -- Confucius --

Sonnet 33 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 33

by William Shakespeare

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald --