Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli

And he would explain it to me, and though I couldn't really understand, still I would feel something, a cool fizzing behind my ears, because I was feeding off his astonishment.
I mean, feeling myself lose it like that--I wonder if it was anything like BT's plunge down Dead Man's Hill: off the edge of self-control and down the slippery slope of my own words.
I'll carry my thoughts with me like soda in a cup, sipping through a straw whenever I feel like a taste: during class, on my skateboard, lying down to sleep, especially then.

Savvy by Ingrid Law

Kind of a take-off on The Wizard of Oz. Well-written.

It's just that it hadn't crossed my mind yet to pray for Poppa, and again I felt selfish and shamed and bad enough to have a house come land PLOP down on me, leaving nothing but my feet sticking out; that's just how wicked I felt.

Student quote

The book was magnetic, as if it were a magnet and I were a paper clip. --Jeongpyo

pictures of hollis woods by Patricia Reilly Giff

The white house: crumbs on the table, kids fighting over a bag of Wonder bread.

It was wonderful, the first place the sun hit every day, so that squares of light turned the room to lemon gold.

And so I drove in that field in the summer-evening light, Steven shouting directions as I lurched through the ruts, bucking, stalling, starting up again with gear-grinding noises.

We'd sail up and down the aisles of DeMattia's Food Store, picking and choosing: ravioli, and a pink can of shredded tuna for Henry.

catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Disney is our collective stepparent, the nice one who tells us bedtime stories and bakes cupcakes.

My lab partner snorts. "Family classic [Alice in Wonderland]," she mutters. "Mind-altering drugs, demented hatters, and a homicidal queen." She opens her Spanish book to the pluperfect subjunctive.

Sharon's tongue reminded Andrew of a frog catching flies. He wondered if Sharon ever got a mouthful of bugs the way she opened her mouth and wiggled her tongue around. --contributed by Briana

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli

In her mind's eye, Primrose saw a house-like paint job--maybe white with blue trim--and a little white picket fence and a patch of grass and a birdbath and flower boxes for windows. --contributed by Jordan

Madison Finn by Laura Dower

Fifteen minutes into the start of the school day, and Madison Finn had already chewed off all the orange glitter polish on her left hand.

Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnik

An energetic book on writing style. I actually liked it more than "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves."
Sometimes when I'm digging for the right word, I long for a terrier-like acuity, a canine's sensory gifts applied to language. (xi)
Whenever I review those dictates from The Elements of Style, that cynosure of American composition by William Strunk Jr. and E. B White, I feel like I should make a dash for it, vault the gates into the free zone. (p. 2)
With some ten million copies rooted on as many reference shelves, Strunk and White has become the ivy (if not the kudzu) on our great walls of clarity and correctness. (p. 3)
Not that graphic novelists invented loopy onomatopoeia. James Thurber was there some time ago: "Tires booped and whooshed, the fenders queeled and graked," he wrote in one of his sketches. (p. 81)

"Welcome to the River of Grass" by Jane Yolen

Beautifully written and illustrated book about the Florida Everglades.

Tree islands hump up over the grass, clump up into hummocky hammocks covered with vines; live oak, myrsine, pigeon plum -- making green clouds of trees crowding the horizon.
Farther south by the mangroves on stiltlike roots the water goes brackish, then brine.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

"When I realized that, I thought, Oh Man! It's not enough that the Haitians get destroyed by everything else, but they also have an exquisite openness to being injured by words."

He was a fine and ferociously competive athlete, known as Elbows to people who played basketball with him. In later years his younger daughters would rechristen him the Warden, on account of his strictness--no maeup, no boyfriends, no staying out late.

Meager incomes don't guarantee abysmal health statistics, but the two usually go together.

Jim said, "And let me conclude this, my brief remarks here at this TB All-Star Weekend, by paraphrasing someone of our tribe, of Paul's tribe and my tribe of anthropologists. Margaret Mead once said, Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world." He paused. "Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have."

As we entered the city proper, that great dove-colored epicurean city, he murmured something about how much could be done in Haiti if only he could get his hands on the money that the first world spent on pet grooming.

"An H of G" was short for "a hermeneutic of generosity," which he had defined once for me in an e-mail: "I have a hermeneutic of generosity for you because I know you're a good guy. Therefore I will interpret what you say and do in a favorable light."

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

I slipped through the sleeping house as silently as a needle through lace.

My ceiling was sky and an eyelash of a moon.

I loved his howl, which I could both hear and feel: long and plaintive, woebegone and heartsore, filled with yearning for what used to be and for what would never come again.

He had a hound's sad eyes too -- brown with white showing above the lower lid and bags of skin below.

I soaked away a year of cinders and grime and Mum Olga's orders and Hattie's edicts and Olive's demands.

The Fire Pony by Rodman Philbrick

I make like I'm not nervous, but it's a fib, really, because my stomach is all clenched up and my face hurts from pretending to smile.

That sets him off and the next thing you know -- wham! -- a hoof smashes the gate about head high -- and there's Showdown, with his black eyes blazing like crazy marbles and his nostrils flaring like his tail's on fire.

Joe isn't talking to me, he's talking to himself the way he doees, scuffling around the bunkhouse and running his fingers through his hair and looking like something is about to jump out of a corner and go for him, he's that spooked.You can feel the heat licking at us, it makes my face warm and my eyes hot, and the sparks rise up like lightning bugs, swirling and dancing in the air.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

What a delicious read! I savored it like I savor rhubarb pie.

Baby Kochamma was holding on to the back of the front seat with her arms. When the car moved, her armfat swung like heavy washing in the wind. Now it hung down like a fleshy curtain, blocking Estha from Rahel.

Comrade Pillai's arms were crossed over his chest, and he clasped his own armpits possessively, as though someone had asked to borrow them and he had just refused.

A column of black ants walked across a windowsill, their bottoms tilted upwards, like a line of mincing chorus girls in a Busby Berkeley musical.

The green-for-a-day had seeped from the trees. Dark palm trees were splayed like drooping combs against the monsoon sky. The orange sun slid through their bent, grasping teeth.

The sound of the sun crinking the washing. Crisping white bedsheets. Stiffening starched saris. Off-white and gold.

Estha and Rahel lifted the little boat and carried it to the water. It looked surprised, like a grizzled fish that had surfaced from the deep.

Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant (lighting cigarettes, refilling glasses).

Each of her tight, shining plaits was looped over and tied with ribbons so that they hung down on either side of her face like the outlines of large, drooping ears that hadn't been colored in yet.

Copper Sun by Sharon Draper

A very well-done story of a young girl taken from her home in Africa by treachery, the terrible things that were done to her, and her escape to a life of freedom in Fort Mose outside of St. Augustine, Florida. A bit too graphic for upper elementary.

We done fell out the trouble tree and hit every branch on the way down!

Amari glanced toward the west and watched the sun set. It glowed a bright metallic copper--the same sun that set each evening upon her homeland. She knew that she had found a home once more. [ending]

Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori

She sat down after her silent speech feeling as though she was filled with the bright ble and green brushstrokes on Monet's canvas.

The bonfire was a ritual of cleansing, of putting things behind and moving on into the new year.

Its design, showing a cluster of irises, was made up of various shades of blue -- some of them closer to green, others closer to purple.

pictures of hollis woods by Patricia Reilly Giff

A lace curtain of snow blew across the porch.

I liked the feeling of hacking and slashing and getting things done.

It was wonderful, the first place the sun hit every day, so that squares of light turned the room to lemon gold.

I'd drawn pages of animal tracks for him, raccoon and deer, rabbit and possum . . . and birds, even a loon that had come out of the water to sun itself on a rock.

After I ate I looked at the tree figure Josie was doing of me: a long piece of wood, spaces drilled in the sides where the arms would be, a face beginning to take shape, a mouth begun, a small, pointed nose, and a tiny cut on the forehead.

Dancing at the Odinochka by Kirkpatrick Hill

Mama insisted they must carve the spear points from caribou bone because it was hutlaanee to use any metal at all when you were fishing.

The willow leaves had a silvery side and a green side, so that the leaves flashed in the breeze, now silver, now green.

Yuri had everyone line up in the dirt in front of the store, and then he patiently taught them what to do when he called out the instructions: Promenade, and allemande left, allemand right, and do-si-do and swing your partner.

"Curiosity makes a good scientist," he said, and Erinia was pleased because no one before had ever thought curiosity was a good thing.

the ANYBODIES by N.E. Bode

This YA novel - totally suitable for the younger crowd - has me in stitches. Don't miss this read. It is worth reading for the voice alone.

Fern Drudger knew that her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Drudger, were dull.

Ridiculously dull.

Incredibly tragically dull.

Fern tried to believe the sensible Drudgers. She tried. But there was some part of Fern's mind that was glowing, singing, rowdy, brassy as a m,arching band with characters so big and cartoonish they seemed to be careening down a parade route like giant helium balloons.

(Here you should take a sip of water or stretch or look around you to make sure that everything is intact. Hopefully the house isn't on fire or being invaded by a horde of some sort. Sometimes I've gotten caught up in a book, and I would have appreciated a quick reminder from the author concerning the outside world; and I swore that if I ever wrote a book, I would include one. So, here it is. Is everything in order? Okay then. Go on.)

The Bone's car was old, rusted out. It growled cancerously. It pitched thick balls of gray smoke out of its tailpipe. The Bone seemed to be volleying more than steering. He'd turn the wheel, and eventually the car would decide to go in that general direction. Every once in a whie one of the wipers would bump along the windshield, stall, then bump back again. One of the backseat doors was tied shut with rope that was attached to the driver's headrest. The ceiling lining, which had been originally set at some distant and probably now-abandoned factory, had come unglued and hung like the stretched-out underbelly of an ominous cloud; Fern's mind fluttered momentarily back to the man from the cencus bureau with the misty gray hand.

There was a sign dug into the dirt: BOARDERS WELCOME. MUST BE TIDY AND WELL-READ.

Has it ever happened to you that you had no desire to do something until someone told you not to? Don't poke your finger into the cake! your mother tells you, and although it hadn't dawned on your to poke your finger into the cake, you suddenly want to do it, desperately.

Sometimes you need to dig down deep, to rely on your own resources. This is a very American thing, self-reliance. Our forefathers and our foremothers, and, for that matter, our foreaunts and foreuncles, would say that self-reliance is a cornerstone of something or other.

Travel Team by Mike Lupica

A delightful, dare I say heart-warming, YA sports novel with a short but quick protagonist, a mom who quotes old-school song lyrics, and a dad, well - you'll just have to meet him.

HE KNEW HE WAS SMALL.

He just didn't think he was small.

Big difference.

Danny Walker, even at twelve, was smart enough to know this about girls: They were smarter than boys already. They were smarter about all the important stuff in life that didn't include sports, and would stay smarter from now on, which meant that he and the rest of the boys would be playing catch-up, trying to come from behind, the rest of the way.

Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford

I recently reread this YA classic and enjoyed the voice as much now as I did when I was a Young Adult! This was published in 1968, so I must have read it when it just came out.

This was just the kind of talk to make me squirm, and he knew it, so I just sat there for a while and squirmed, and he puffed on the Havana and grinned. He took it out of his mouth, and looked at the tip, and then shot a left at me that caught me on the shoulder and stung down to my kneecaps. -- p.22

At the top, a thousand feet or so higher, the hot, dry desert air vanished, to be replaced by air with a completely different set of qualities; mountain air, cool, fresh and joyous to breathe, as clean in its own way as a breeze from the Gulf. -- p. 29

That's the best way to get through a war: Don't be big and strong, be hard to find. -- p. 34

To my left, burning out of the sea of pink and tan faces, was the meanest-looking human pan I'd ever seen, a brown flat face with hot black eyes, a mouth so thin and lipless and straight that it seemed like the slot in a piggy bank. -- p. 49

"It's pretty up here, isn't it?" I said, making some of the brilliant drawing-room repartee for which I was famous on three continents. -- p. 89

"Steenie, " Marcia said, "you lie better and more often than anybody I know. I don't think you'll ever make it to medical school. You're going to be a career grocery-bagger at Safeway, and get a testimonial dinner after forty years of putting the lettuce and the eggs at the botton of the sack with the cans on top." --p. 114

A rattly blue bus makes a daily circle of the little mountain towns in Cabezón County, from Sagrado to the valley at Yunque, and then up through the hills -- San Esteban, Santa María, Villa Galicia, Ojo Amargo, Río Venado, Río Conejo, Amorcita, and, at the end of the route, nearly 11,000 feet high, La Cima. -- p. 137

Appalachia by Cynthia Rylant

In a certain part of the country called Appalachia you will find dogs named Prince or King living in little towns with names like Coal City and Sally's Backbone.

The kitchens of these houses where Mamie or Boyd or Oley live almost always smell like fried bacon or chicken and on top of the stoves there are little plates of food with leftovers from breakfast or lunch or supper and you can help yourself to a biscuit or maybe a piece of cornbread crumbled into a glass of buttermilk or some cold fried squash.

There will be a lot of singing in that church and maybe some crying for joy and after the service people will linger in the yard, talking, till the women say it's time to eat, and they will go home and sit around a table spread with potatoes and beans and meat and good hot coffee or sweet iced tea and they will eat until they can eat no more except for the piece of lemon pound cake they saved some room for.

Sentences with Apostrophes: Possession or Contraction

If Jesus ever comes back to earth again, I'm thinking, he'll come as a dog, because there isn't anything as humble or patient or loving or loyal as the dog I have in my arms right now. -- Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Claire)

He laughed aloud, and his solemn Quaker face turned handsome, with dark eyes like Charity's. --North by Night by Katherine Ayres (Carlos Javier)

You know, Jacob, if it weren't for the fact that we're natural enemies and that you're also trying to steal away the reason for my existence, I might actually like you. --Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Asne)

I hurried away, the doctor's words echoing in my mind. Brain, lungs, kidneys. . . -- Dunk by David Lubar (Luis)

As the officer said, "It's not every day you see a 1961 Red Edsel that screams Arrest me!"-- America's Dumbest Criminals by Daniel Butler (Dylan)

But at times like this, she was a stranger to me, someone bigger and closer to God's divine word. -- Steal Away ...to freedom by Jennifer Armstrong (Sooji)

I was frankly astonished by Gran's words. -- Steal Away ...to freedom by Jennifer Armstrong (Ricky)

Sir, from what Sancho said about that place, why wouldn't he?" --Numbering All the Bones by Ann Rinaldi (Antoine)

Lizer, Monday, Betty's Tim, and the others had melted away, quiet as owls. Steal Away ...to Freedom by Jennifer Armstrong (Andrea)

I'm lying there on my side, about to close my eyes, when suddenly this horrible face with red eyes and green lips pops right up beside me, not five inches from my own and bobs up and down -- a floating head. --Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Salvador)

Meggie had to laugh -- although she couldn't tell by Dusfinger's face if he was joking or meant it seriously -- Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Alejandra)

Don't get mouthy girl, or I'll haul you over to Captain Wirz at the prison.-- Numbering All the Bones by Ann Rinaldi (Mabel)

There were many walking the road, some with older folks, some alone, and they all looked hungry and I couldn't see them without thinking of Tyler and little Delie but we just didn't have enough. -- Sarny by Gary Paulsen (Daniela)

"It's way on the other side of town, isn't it?" Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R.L. Stine (Victor)

I couldn't bring myself to throw them away meaning what they meant and at the first gray dawn, sun just starting to help the lamp, Lucy she found it. -- Sarny by Gary Paulsen (Laura)

Rich guys like Tyler's dad, they don't fish for money, they fish for the fun of it, and because it gives them an excuse to own a big expensive boat and wear a long-billed fisherman's cap. -- The Young Man and the Sea by Rodman Philbrick (Daniel)

All God's creatures need such times of rest, as it girds them for the coming spring and for whatever journeys the warming weather will bring. -- North by Night by Katherine Ayres (Catalina)

Ann Martin's " A Dog's Life - the Autobiography of a Stray"

The fire pops and I rise slowly, turn around twice, then a third time, and settle onto the bed again, Susan smiling fondly at me from her armchair.

Warmth is important to an old dog.

Sentences stalked by Claire Griffiths from "Hope was Here" by Joan Bauer

"Politics, he kept telling us isn't about power, control, or manipulation, it's about serving up your very best."

You don't understand the power of loss when it first hits you like a baseball coming fast from an out-of-control pitcher.

I closed my eyes; felt in my heart a brush of angels' wings and sensed those angeles coming up the welcome starways, one from the left and one from the right to guide G.T.'s spirit on the flight up to heaven.

what my mother doesn't know by Sonya Sones

What happens when a girl falls in love with the class "dork". Will she betray him when she is teased by her classmates? A novel written in blank verse.

From Mom and Dad Used to Be in Love

But now they have

these hideous battles all the time.

They scream their guts out

at each other about thinks like

how they should be raising me

or about money or the in-laws

or even just what movie to go see.

Their shrieking whips around inside me like a tornado.

And no fingers crammed in my ears,

no pillows held over my head,

can block it out.

From The Meaning of Murphy

(Okay.

I laughed too.

But only so no one would think

I was strange.)

From But Suddenly

And he looks

so happy to see me

his tail's practically wagging.

this lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Definitely a young adult book and not one for intermediate. That being said, I think this book deals well with some powerful themes.

All I knew about the seventies was what I'd learned in school and from the History Channel: Vietnam, President Carter, disco.

Don would become my stepfather, joining a not-so-exclusive group.

Not that I liked the setting, particularly; the place was a total dump, mostly because four guys lived there and none of them had ever been introduced formally to a bottle of Lysol.

Point two: he was a slob. His shirttail was always out, his tie usually had a stain, his hair, while curly and thick, sprung out from his head wildly in a mad-scientist sort of fashion. Also, his shoelaces were continually untied. He was all loose ends, and I hated loose ends.

People like Dexter followed risks the way dogs followed smells, thinking only of what could lie ahead and never logically of what probably did.

Good passage for a freewrite:

After all, Paul met just about every criteria on my guy list. He was tall. Good-looking. Had no annoying personal habits. Was older than me but not by more than three years. Was a decent dresser but didn't shop more than I did. Fell within the acceptable limits in terms of personal hygiene (i.e., aftershave and cologne yes, mousse and fake tan, no). Was smart enough to carry on good conversation but not an eggbert. But the big whammy, the tipping point, was that he was leaving at the end of the summer and we'd already established that we would part as friends and go our separate ways.

As a firm believer in the rip-it-off-like-a-Band-Aid school of bad news, I had to tell her.

Sentences from Hope Rising

Hope Rising by Kim Meeder is about a ranch in Oregon that rescues horses and then uses the horses to heal the wounded spirits of children.

After riding two of our most gentle horses, a flicker, a glimmer, a tiny glow of hope began to emerge.

Fear, which had shadowed their entire lives like a stealthy predator, could not rule them in this place.

Dawn poured over the land in a butter-colored wave.

Miscellaneous Selections

The breezes are warm and the moon is as bright as a golden doubloon. -- Snowed in with Grandmother Silk by Carol Fenner

When there were only glowing embers and an occasional flit of a flame in the fireplace, Ruddy's grandmother closed the glass fireplace doors. -- Snowed in with Grandmother Silk by Carol Fenner

My full and proper name is Douglas MacArthur Hanson. -- Invisible by Pete Hautman

Madham has 109 buildings, all scratch-built. There are two lakes, a football stadium, a cement plant, a hospital, two tunnels, a forest, and sixty feet of track. It has a population of 289 plastic people, seventeen dogs, six cows, and eleven horses. -- Invisible by Pete Hautman

My mother is used to my father's hyperlogical rages. She simply smiled and said, "I understand, dear." -- Invisible by Pete Hautman

"In this job," Morgan told me after a dinner rush, "You get a lifetime of experience every day. A crisis will crop up, worsen, come to a head and resolve itself all in fifteen to thirty minutes. You don't even have time to panic. You just push through." --keeping the moon by Sarah Dessen

A good passage with which to inspire a freewrite:

No one ever really teaches you how to dance. I was kind of moving back and forth, looking down like everyone else. I couldn't even find myself in the crowd reflected in the cafeteria windows. That was nice.

There was a girl standing next to me with glasses and long hair, and when I looked over she smiled shyly. The music was good and I relaxed, letting myself move a little bit more, copying some of the moves I saw other people making. Maybe this would be different, this school. Maybe I would make friends.

I kept dancing, thinking this, and I realized suddenly why people liked to dance; it did feel good. fun, even.

Then I heard it. Someone laughing. The noise started off quietly, but as the music was dying down, the song changing, it got louder. I looked up, still dancing, to see a boy across the cafeteria with his cheeks puffed out, moving like a hippopotamus, his legs straight and locked, rocking back and forth. Everyone was standing around watching him, giggling. The more they laughed, the more pronounced he became; sticking out his tongue, rolling his eyes back in his head.

It took a few seconds to realize that he was imitating me. And by that point everyone was staring.

I stopped moving. The music changed and I glanced around me to see that the girl with the glasses was gone; everyonewas gone. I'd been all alone, dancing, in my big fat Misses Plus jeans and new shirt. --keeping the moon by Sarah Dessen

Wizards of the Game by David Lubar

I took the stairs four at a time, using the railing to make the turn at the landing the way a space probe uses the sun as a sling to build velocity.

I stayed on the computer until I got booted off. Not by a power surge, but the old-fashioned way -- by Mom pointing out it was time for bed.

"He have great reflect and agitation for you."

Dadisms

My dad was "famous" for his dadisms:

"Ship up or shape out!!"

"I'm going to bot your swottom."

In Jean Ferris's Once Upon a Marigold there are some wonderful dadisms:

As Ed would say, he'd buttered his bread and now he had to lie in it.

Finally, near dawn he drifted off, figuring that there was nothing he could do about it now; it was all spilled milk over the dam.

But it was too late now to lock the barn door after the wolf in sheep's clothing was stolen.

Sentences stalked by my 5th graders with active verbs

First of all close your eyes and take three deep cleansing breaths. --Star Struck --stalked by Catalina
Dameon took the rollcard and walked out the door. -- Wayside School is Falling Down --stalked by Asne
Children came and went some were taken in or adopted. -- Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech - stalked by Claire
Miss Blimp raps her pointer stick so hard, practically breaking it before people settle down. --Al Capone Does My Shirts --stalked by Daniela
She said this in a cheery voice, but afterwards in the small silence, when no one commented on her pies, she gave a soft sigh and looked down on her plate. -- Walk Two Moons -- stalked by Carlos Javier
Ladies in the court had screamed; one had fainted. --Graceling --stalked by Luis
He came through the trees and saw the two dogs - Big shaggy Beelzebub and petite well groomed Hecate. -- Once Upon a Marigold -- stalked by Mabel
When Christy finished, he bellowed "Yes! and turned his attention to Raymond. -- The 6th Grade Nickname Game - stalked by Sooji
As the stupefied highschoolers left the scene they looked back. --Maniac Magee - stalked by Antoine
So there you stand, poor Mr. Steenwilly, tapping your foot and waving your baton while sweat runs through your thinning hair, and in your mind you are hearing lovely John Philip Sousa. --You Don't Know Me --stalked by Dylan
He pointed his thumb in the direction of his own house, and then wiped his hair off his forehead. -- Bridge to Terabithia - stalked by Andrea
Then, in one sudden movement he reached down and struck Klaus across the face. --The Bad Beginning -- stalked by Laura
He did not let go and she snapped at him. -- Julie of the Wolves --stalked by Salvador
Mrs. Zarves assigns us lots of busy work so we don't have time to think. -- Wayside School is Falling Down -- stalked by Daniel

A Few Sentences From Christmas Vacation Reading

Oh dear, Victor thought, she's wearing gondola earrings. -- The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

"And you, Ernesto," Ida replied, "probably have a wallet where other people had a heart." -- The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

But no baby was going to defeat her. She picked up the nearest one and sat down at the table. With one hand tight around his belly, she fed him with the other. The process was messy, like pitching coal onto a moving train. -- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

But things thoughtlessly done are never so easily undone. -- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine - he could see out, but you couldn't see in. --Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Although that story was not, in fact, true, Armstrong House was a lion of a house. It gloated and glowered and loomed. It even had a curving colonnade that reached out like a giant paw as if to swat the Oglethorpe Club off its high horse across the street. -- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

"How old are you?" asked Sakiah.
"In human years, or teacher yers?" Miss Pointy answered, and then quickly called on someone else. -- Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell

"We are not voting," said Miss Pointy, her arms crossed like she does when she's waiting. "Stories are not a democracy. Thank God." -- Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell

Time moved more quickly with my book friends than my real friends. -- Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell

My mind felt like it was trying to carry a pie pan full of water and if I wasn't careful, it would splash and spill. -- Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell

"Any of you ever read a textbook under the blankets, with a flashlight?. . . Anyone ever recommend a textbook to a friend? Did you ever say, 'This is so great! You've got to read this!'?. . . Anyone cry at the end of a textbook?. . . Well, they make lovely paperweights anyway, don't you think?" -- Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell

Some of the girls at school thought Rachel was stuck-up, but I knew she wasn't. For real, shy girls usually aren't. They usually care more than anyone else about what other people think. It's like they're walking on ice and the ice is other people's opinions. -- Sahara Special by Esme
Raji Codell

It [boxing] also takes the ability to deal with two aspects of pain: the anticipation that you will be hurt, perhaps badly, and the knowledge that you can stop more pain simply by quitting. -- The Greatest by Walter Dean Myers

His style - straight, crisp punches and avoiding being hit - impressed the international judges. -- The Greatest by Walter Dean Myers

Who was Cassius Clay? He was a black man who had grown up in a racist South, who had seen black men reaching for brooms when they should have been reaching for the stars. -- The Greatest by Walter Dean Myers

But today he'd found a ring with a big shiny pink stone, a collapsible telescope, a book of Greek myths, an almost-new leather jerkin, and a flask half full (he knew there were some people who would have said half empty) of a quite palatable wine - rather frisky, with some floral notes and a nice, lingering, jaunty sort of finish. --Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris

Then he wrapped the stack of clothing in one of the big picnic napkins, stashed the bundle in the hamper, and selled down with his briar pipe and the book of Greek myths. Nothing like a little fratricide, patricide, matricide, and infanticide to send a fellow right off to sleep. --Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris

As it so often does, an impulsive, daring act suddenly - and too late - seemed seriously flawed in its conception and in its inability to be retracted. --Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris