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