• Asked and Answered

Asked and Answered | August 3, 2016

What is your favorite quote from a children’s/YA book?

“ ‘Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.’ ― E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I read this book over and over as a child.  The only thing that would have made me happier than running away to live in a museum was the idea of running away to a library. Heck, I still consider it from time to time.  It is easy to forget the magic of things that have been in our life for a long time, be they favorite books from childhood, relationships, or tasks like writing. For them to fade into something that feels ordinary and known. This quote has always reminded me to make sure a tiny corner of myself was still flapping around for the things that I love and to leave myself open to discover them in new ways.”

—Eileen Cook, author of With Malice

“Recently, I’ve been reading Winnie-the-Pooh with my four-year old and I’ve rediscovered the incredibly beautiful magic of A.A. Milne’s words. But of all his poignant lines, I will always love when Christopher Robin says to Pooh, ‘…there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.’  Nowadays, when struggles occur, they are  the words I tell myself, as well as the words I hope my daughter hears.”

—Grace Lin, Newbery Honor author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and the upcoming When the Sea Turned to Silver

“This might be a difficult question for some writers, but it isn’t for me. Just before my 13th birthday I encountered the line that made me want to be a writer. I found it reading A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin, during a scene in which the main character, Ged, has just opened a portal to a different realm.

‘And through that bright misshapen breach clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous…’

That line stopped me in my tracks. A ‘clot’ of shadow. That word. Those words. I went back and re-read them again and again, trying to figure out what was happening. In that moment I became aware, for the first time, that the author of the book had chosen each of her words with care for their meaning and effect. With that realization came the desire to work that same forge and learn that craft. I knew I wanted to be a writer.”

—Matthew J. Kirby, author of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Last Descendants, and A Taste for Monsters

“The end of The House at Pooh Corner, which I can’t even type here without crying:

‘So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place at the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.’

Now I will go blow my nose and wipe my eyes so I can see to continue typing.”

—Kate Milford, author of The Broken Lands

” 1. From The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien:

‘Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.’

(and there’s more.  It’s a classic and bittersweet poem). 

2. From Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel (the chapter ‘Cookies,’ which is a funny bit on self-control):

‘Frog,’ said Toad, ‘let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop.’ “

—Kory Merritt, illustrator of the Poptropica series ries