My Father's Dragon

Title: My Father's Dragon

Author: Ruth Stiles Gannett

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Middle Grade

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    A group of lazy animals on Wild Island have captured a baby dragon and put him to work. The little dragon can fly, so they are forcing him to act as a flying ferry across a dangerous river. The dragon doesn't like it. 

    So goes the story that reaches a kind-hearted boy named Elmer Elevator ("my father"). Elmer, carrying a bag of most unusual supplies, sets out on a secret journey to rescue the dragon. How Elmer uses these supplies to beguile the nasty inhabitants of Wild Island and free the dragon is one of the most exciting adventures ever. 

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face." — John Donne, The Autumnal --

Sonnet 21 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 21

by William Shakespeare

So is it not with me as with that Muse

Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse

Making a couplement of proud compare,

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare

That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.

O' let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:

Let them say more than like of hearsay well;

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

"At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost." — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne --

"Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?" — L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest --

"And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves..." — Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse --

"There never was a night that had no morn." -- Dinah Craik --

The Old Man and the Sea

Title: The Old Man and the Sea

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Rating: ★★★★★

Age Category: Adult Literature

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    "The best that has been said and thought." -- Benedicton Classics, Oxford

"Protect your own good in all that you do." -- Epicetus --

Sonnet 36 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 36

by William Shakespeare

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain

Without thy help by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name:

But do not so; I love thee in such sort

As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

"Take time to do what makes your soul happy." -- Unknown --

"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." -- Augustine of Hippo --

"One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can't change." -- Unknown --

"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself." -- Christian N. Bovee --

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

 

Title: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Author: Barbara Robinson

Rating: ★★★★★

Age Category: Middle Grade

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    The Herdmans are absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lie and steal and smoke cigars (even the girls). They talk dirty, hit little kids, cuss their teachers, set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse, and take the name of the Lord in vain. So no one is prepared when the Herdmans invade church one Sunday - and decide to take over the annual Christmas Pageant. 

    None of them has ever heard the Christmas story before. Their interpretation - the Wise Men are a bunch of dirty spies and Herod needs a good beating - has a lot of people up in arms. But the actual pageant is full of surprises for everyone, starting with the Herdmans themselves.

    "[The book] had me laughing so hard I could hardly read. Don't miss this hilarious and touching book." -- The Boston Globe

"Be the reason someone smiles today." -- Unknown --

Sonnet 6 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 6

by William Shakespeare

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:

Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

"It's not that we have a soul, we are a soul." -- Amelia Barr --

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." -- George Horace Lorimer --

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." -- Louisa May Alcott --

"Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul." -- Theodore Parker --

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Title: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Author: Frederick Douglass

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Adult Literature

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    A classic story of agonizing circumstances and enduring hope, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an eloquent account of a young man's life under slavery and his eventual escape. 

    

    Written to promote the abolitionist cause, it became the best-selling fugitive slave narrative of the era. This autobiography is a powerful reminder of the brutality of slavery and the terrors that African-American people were forced to endure. 

"Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul." -- Unknown --