Book Quote Quiz

He Said/She Said/Who Said? Do you have a guess? 

The following quotes appear in famous children's books. (The book covers are some clues. Answers are at the bottom of the article.)

1. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

2.  “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

3.  “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

4.  “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

5.  “It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather!”

6.  “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

7.  “I have noticed several times that people don't think I know how to behave even when I'm trying as hard as I can.”

8.  “She thought to herself, "This is now." She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.”

9.  “Give a boy - ANY boy - enough time, and he WILL eventually pick his nose!”

10.  “And the walls became the world all around.”

 

11.  “Some day I will be famous but for now I am stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons.”

12. "George promised to be good, but it is easy for little monkeys to forget."

13.  “At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.”

14.  “...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”

1. AA Milne, Winnie the Pooh 2. JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 3. Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You! 4. EB White, Charlotte's Web 5. Louis Sachar, Holes 6. JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit 7. Astrid Lindren, Pippi Longstocking 8. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods 9. Lincoln Peirce, From the Top 10. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are 11. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 12. HA Rey, Curious George 13. Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express 14. Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning.

Book List: Inspirational Literature for Kids

The Charlotte Mecklenberg County Public Library in Charlotte, North Carolina defines "Inspirational Literature" as 

"...books [that] highlight people overcoming adversity or reaching new levels of understanding. Whether they pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or have help from a higher power, these books will uplift and entertain you."

Parents and kids looking for wholesome, uplifting stories often request direction toward titles that are available. If that is your situation, look no further: click here to get a listing of juvenile titles for our library.

Enjoy, and be inspired!

Top 100 Children's Novels - How Many Have You Read?

Do you have a New Year’s Resolution to read more books? I do! To help me complete this, I have challenged myself to read every book on the School Library Journal’s List of Top 100 Children’s Novels! I’m excited about enriching my knowledge of our library’s children’s collection by reading these fantastic stories. I have already starting reading Holes by Louis Sachar,  and I'm working my way down the list. If you need any reading ideas, this is a wonderful list to go by! You can check the list out below or look in our catalog!


#1 Charlotte’s Web  E.B. White
#2 A Wrinkle in Time  Madeleine L’Engle
#3 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone  J.K. Rowling
#4 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe  C.S. Lewis
#5 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  E. L. Konigsburg
#6 Holes  Louis Sachar
#7 The Giver  Lois Lowry
#8 The Secret Garden  Frances Hodgson Burnett
#9 Anne of Green Gables  L.M. Montgomery
#10 The Phantom Tollbooth  Norton Juster
#11 The Westing Game  Ellen Raskin
#12 The Hobbit  J.R.R. Tolkien
#13 Bridge to Terabithia  Katherine Paterson
#14 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  J.K. Rowling
#15 Because of Winn-Dixie  Kate DiCamillo
#16 Harriet the Spy  Louise Fitzhugh
#17 Maniac Magee  Jerry Spinelli
#18 Matilda  Roald Dahl
#19 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  Roald Dahl
#20 Tuck Everlasting  Natalie Babbitt
#21 Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  Rick Riodan
#22 The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread  Kate DiCamillo
#23 Little House in the Big Woods  Laura Ingalls Wilder
#24 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows  J.K. Rowling
#25 Little Women  Louisa May Alcott
#26 Hatchet  Gary Paulsen
#27 A Little Princess  Francis Hodgson Burnett
#28 Winnie-the Pooh  A.A. Milne
#29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland /Alice Through the Looking Glass  Lewis Carroll
#30 The Dark is Rising  Susan Cooper
#31 Half Magic  Edward Eager
#32 Mrs. Fris and the Rats of NIMH  Robert C. O’Brien
#33 James and the Giant Peach  Roald Dahl
#34 Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963  Christopher Paul Curtis
#35 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire JK Rowling
#36 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret  Judy Blume
#37 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry  Mildred Taylor
#38 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  J.K. Rowling
#39 When You Reach Me  Rebecca Stead
#40 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  L. Frank Baum
#41 The Witch of Blackbird Pond  Elizabeth George Speare
#42 Little House on the Prairie  Laura Ingalls Wilder
#43 Ramona the Pest  Beverly Cleary
#44 Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing  Judy Blume
#45 The Golden Compass  Philip Pullman
#46 Where the Red Fern Grows  Wilson Rawls
#47 Bud, Not Buddy  Christopher Paul Curtis
#48 The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and a Very Interesting Boy  Jeanne Birdsall
#49 Frindle  Andrew Clements
#50 Island of the Blue Dolphins  Scott O’Dell
#51 The Saturdays  Elizabeth Enright
#52 The Invention of Hugo Cabret  Brian Selznick
#53 Wind in the Willows  Kenneth Grahame
#54 The BFG  Roald Dahl
#55 The Great Gilly Hopkins  Katherine Paterson
#56 Number the Stars  Lois Lowry
#57 Ramona Quim, Age 8  Beverly Cleary
#58 The Wolves of Willough Chase  Joan Aiken
#59 Inkheart  Cornelia Funke
#60 The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle  Avi
#61 Stargirl  Jerry Spinelli
#62 The Secret of the Old Clock (The Nancy Drew mysteries)  Caroline Keene
#63 Gone-Away Lake  Elizabeth Enright
#64 A Long Way from Chicago  Richard Peck
#65 Ballet Shoes  Noah Streatfeild
#66 Henry Huggins  Beverly Cleary
#67 Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher  Bruce Coville
#68 Walk Two Moons  Sharon Creech
#69 The Mysterious Benedict Society  Trenton Lee Stewart
#70 Betsy Tacy  Maud Hart Lovelace
#71 A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning  Lemony Snicket
#72 My Father’s Dragon  Ruth Stiles Gannett
#73 My Side of the Mountain  Jean Craighead George
#74 The Borrowers  Mary Norton
#75 Love That Dog  Sharon Creech
#76 Out of the Dust  Karen Hesse
#77 City of Ember  Jeanne DuPrau
#78 Johnny Tremain  Esther Forbes
#79 All-of-a-Kind Family  Sydney Taylor
#80 The Graveyard Book  Neil Gaiman
#81 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon  Grace Lin
#82 The Book of Three  Lloyd Alexander
#83 The Thief  Megan Whalen Turner
#84 Little White Horse  Elizabeth Goudge
#85 On the Banks of Plum Creek  Laura Ingalls Wilder
#86 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets  J.K. Rowling
#87 The View from Saturday  E. L. Konigsburg
#88 The High King  Lloyd Alexander
#89 Ramona and her Father  Beverly Cleary
#90 Sarah, Plain and Tall  Patricia MacLachlan
#91 Sideways Stories from Wayside School  Louis Sachar
#92 Ella Enchanted  Gail Carson Levine
#93 Caddie Woodlawn  C. R. Brink
#94 Swallows and Amazons  Arthur Ransome
#95 Pippi Longstocking  Astrid Lindgren
#96 The Witches  Roald Dahl
#97: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane  Kate DiCamillo
#98 Children of Green Knowe  L.M. Boston
#99 The Indian in the Cupboard  Lynne Reid Banks
#100 The Egypt Game  Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Read to Me: Warm Up With A Good Book!

Winter Reading begins Friday, January 3!

 Kids! Pick up a reading log, bookmark and put your name on a penguin for our display of winter readers!

Mark your reading log every day your read out loud for 15 minutes or more. If someone reads to you, that counts too!

Make reading a habit. After you have read for 21 days, come get your prize! Choose a Plush Penguin or Moveable Penguin Eraser, plus an entry to win an Amazon gift card!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! The Re-Seussification Project

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! The good doctor (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel) would have been 108 years old today. To honor him, I might have to take in the 2012 big screen version of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, which hits theaters today.

Also, don't miss Betsy Bird's Fuse #8 blog and the creative challenge she put out for illustrators: Remake a classic Dr. Seuss book cover in the form of another classic illustrator. The results are amusing, amazing, and pure fun, such as the example shown here, The Lorax, in the style of Shel Silverstein, created by Aaron Zenz.

Pearl Harbor Day: A Child's View of Pearl Harbor

“The planes were so low, just barely above the roof tops, that we could see the pilot’s faces and even the goggles that covered their eyes.

In the movies, an airplane attack always has the rat-tat-tat of guns as the plane dive-bombs its target.  But when the Japanese planes flew directly over us, the sound of the bullets was muffled by the roar of the engines.   Even though we couldn’t hear them, the incendiary bullets found their targets. Our kitchen was now on fire and parts of the roof were gone.  The front door of our next door neighbor was so bullet ridden from the strafing that it fell from its hinges.”

This was an eye witness account from the eyes of a child who was in first grade living in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th 1941. It was taken from a book written for children called  Pearl Harbor Child: A Child's View of Pearl Harbor- From Attack to Peace by Dorinda Makanaonalani Nicholson first published in 1993. It is an interesting perspective of history and a great resource to stimulate conversation.

Today, December 7, 2011, marks the 70th anniversary of the day that lives in infamy: Pearl Harbor Day. Early in the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, in a Hawaiian bay, Japan launched a deadly offensive — killing 2,402 Americans and propelling the country into World War II. Where were you in 1941? Do you have a relative or friend with and memories of that day?

Cool World Cooking for Kids

As I passed by the new non-fiction shelf I kept noticing a new cooking series called Cool World Cooking. The cover of Cool African Cooking looked absolutely delicious! After about the tenth time eyeing it, I decided I should just take the book home and try out the recipe because Librarians shouldn’t be drooling over library books all day! I made the Juicy Jollof Rice. While I can never remember the name, I do remember the first bite I took, it was amazing!

I own quite a few children’s cookbooks and most of the recipes have basic ingredients and avoid uncooked meat as well as using the stove. This series is very unique because the recipes are cultural and do not shy away from foods that kids may not have tried before. The recipe I used also involved cooking raw chicken. In general, I think the recipe that I made was very challenging for me, let alone a child. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable letting a child cook Juicy Jollof Rice without adult supervision and help, but working together to create this cultural treat would make a very engaging cooking lesson.

I was very impressed with the recipe that I made in this series and I am looking forward to trying “Amazing Mexican Rice” from Cool Mexican Cooking. If you want to try recipes from around the world, I would definitely check out Cool World Cooking!

Great Deals … Great Cause!

The spring book sale sponsored by the Friends of the Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library is this weekend, Friday, May 20th through Sunday, May 22nd, and an event you won’t want to miss! Although it’s called a “book sale”, because that’s the main item that the Friends sell, it’s much more than that! Books of all types can be found, both used and new, library discards and books originally purchased by others, from baby board books to hardcover and paperback fiction and nonfiction books for children, teens and adults, to reference books, magazines and large print books. VHS and audio tapes, music CDs and books on CD, as well as a few posters, LP albums, children’s puzzles and other odds and ends also await shoppers. And all at bargain prices! Magazines are the lowest priced items at 10 cents each and items for sale go up from there to $2 for adult hardbacks. Some special quality items are priced at higher prices.

The sale times are Friday evening, May 20th, 5 – 7 PM with an entrance fee of $5 for the opportunity to preview the sale; Saturday, May 21st, 9:30 AM – 5 PM, with a bag sale, $10 per brown grocery bag of items from 3 – 5 PM; and Sunday, May 22nd, 1 – 5 PM, a brown grocery bag of items all afternoon for $5 per bag.

Come enjoy shopping for bargains and support the Friends of the Library at the same time! Proceeds from this and all book sales go directly to support the Library and its services. Our Friends have donated more than $120,000 to the Library in the last 30 years to support programming and to purchase items for the Library during building projects. The Library would not be the special place that it is today without the ongoing support of our Friends group. Become a Friend of the Library for just $10 per year – you can join when you visit the sale this weekend!