Last week brought Nims' Island, Grinch, and a passage from The Changling Sea:
from Wendy Orr's Nim's Island:
"A whistle shrilled--and there was the strangest, most wonderful thing she'd ever seen: a wild-haired girl blowing a shell and riding a sea lion across the waves."from Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch stole Christmas:
"Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, was singing, without any presents at all. He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it came. Somehow or other, it came, just the same."
Intriguing and complex sentences from Patricia McKillip's The Changling Sea:
The dark horseman from the sea gazed up at her, mounted at the foot of the cliff. She caught her breath, chilled, as if the sea itself had crept noiselessly across the beach to spill into her circle. Then she blinked, recognizing him. It was only the young prince out for a ride in the bright afternoon. The dark horseman was Kir. Kir was the dark horseman. The phrases turned backward and forward in her mind as she stared at him. A wave boomed and broke behind him, flowing across half the beach, seeking, seeking, then dragged back slowly, powerfully, and, caught in the dark gaze of the rider, his eyes all the twilight colors of the sea, Peri felt as if the undertow had caught her.
Thanks, Tricia, Nandini, and Shelley!
Mine this week is the opening line to Jennifer Murdley's Toad by Bruce Coville, and I don't know any middle-schooler can resist reading more: (okay, I couldn't.)
If Jennifer Murdley hadn't been forced to wear her brother's underpants to schooo, the whole thing might never have happened.
What caught you this week?
9 comments:
I've got two today that you must post:
She closes her eyes and leans her face into the breath of her pot.
“You know I’m doing the right thing, don’t you?” Maggie turns her face, now dimmed, toward Amy.
There both from the short story "Marrow and Fat" by Yat-Yee Chong.
Davin: thank you, that is so kind of you. You can't tell how much an encouragement that is to me.
There were at least two or three other spots I would have liked to pick, but I didn't want to give away the whole story.
Yat-Yee, those lines Davin posted are wonderful! I want to read the story now.
This week I have some lines I loved as soon as I read them. From The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle:
Then the Lady Amalthea smiled at him for the first time since she had come to stay in King Haggard's castle. It was a small smile, like the new moon, a slender bend of brightness on the edge of the unseen, but Prince Lir leaned toward it to be warm. He would have cupped his hands around her smile and breathed it brighter, if he had dared.
Tricia: thanks! If you really want to read the story, I'll send it to you. Email me your email address to yatyeechong at gmail dot com.
Since we're doing this ... :-) I have one from Yat-Yee Chong's MG novel The Kumquat Code.
And his eyes, oh his eyes. They are not just dark brown, but an inky mahogany. They look so tired, probably from carrying the dark half moons underneath. And so sad. Even when he smiles, his eyes remain filled with mysterious sorrow. I almost offer him the extra peppermints from this morning’s prank to cheer him up.
I remembered these lines from months ago, and had to go look for them!
You guys! You are really bolstering my confidence. Thank you. But I'll have to institute a new rule, that quotes should come from any other writer but me.
I really do appreciate your encouragement. I'm going to walk around with a loopy smile on my face now.
Yat-Yee, these snippets from your writing are wonderful!
My quote today is from the YA novel WHAT I SAW AND HOW I LIED by Judy Blundell:
Why did the air here smell like a pocketful of promises? It was the flowers and the ocean and the sky all mixed in together.
Thank you, MG.
This is one of the YA novels I've been wanting to read. And I do get how air can smell like a pocket of promises!
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