Children Kids Book Quotes & Sayings

As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia. — Ed Bradley

We are flooded with books; books come pouring out of the publishing meat grinder. And, the quality has dropped severely. We may be able to print a book better, but intrinsically the book, perhaps, is not better than it was. We have a backlist of books, superb books, by Margaret Wise Brown, by Ruth Krauss, by lots of people. I'd much rather we just took a year off, a moratorium: no more books. For a year, maybe two - just stop publishing. And get those old books back, let the children see them! Books don't go out of fashion with children; they only go out of fashion with adults. So that kids are deprived of the works of art which are no longer around simply because new ones keep coming out.

from The Openhearted Audience (1980) — Maurice Sendak

Ri, here's a question for you," Stella started. She opened it up to everyone else, as well. "When do your kids stop being pets and start being people?"
The room went silent, except for Gloria trying to stifle her giggles.
Stella looked around and felt pleased that she'd gotten the desired reaction.
"What are you talking about? How could you call children pets?" Shannon demanded before Bernadette had the chance to.
"No, this is an honest question." Stella insisted. "You have them, you name them. They're helpless, and you teach, or train, them. Feed them, water them, whatever. And as they grow up, you just hope that they grow up well and don't spend their time clawing your nice sofa or humping your leg."
Stella, "Sugar and Spies: Spy Sisters Book 1 — Rebekah Martin

I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them. — Gene Wolfe

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums. — Jesse Jackson

Then began an experience that turned my life around-working on a book with a black kid as hero. None of the manuscripts I'd been illustrating featured any black kids-except for token blacks in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. Years before I had cut from a magazine a strip of photos of a little black boy. I often put them on my studio walls before I'd begun to illustrate children's books. I just loved looking at him. This was the child who would be the hero of my book. — Ezra Jack Keats

Oh, sweet little huggles," Mama said. "Remember what Pampy used to say when he wanted to be brave? — Lenora Riegel

Attention spans are changing. It's very noticeable. I am very aware that the kind of books I read in my childhood kids now won't be able to read. I was reading Kipling and PG Wodehouse and Shakespeare at the age of 11. The kind of description and detail I read I would not put in my books. I don't know how much you can fight that because you want children to read. So I pack in excitement and plot and illustrations and have a cliffhanger every chapter. Charles Dickens was doing cliffhangers way back when. But even with all the excitement you have to make children care about the characters. — Cressida Cowell

We give scholarships to high school kids and a new library of books to every preschool child in the county where I was born. I didn't have books at home so I did all my reading at school. I love books and I believe that helping kids to read gives them a great start in life. — Dolly Parton

I had been reading children's books all my life and saw them not as minor amusements but as part of the whole literary mainstream; not as "juveniles" or "kiddie lit," one of the most demeaning terms in the scholastic jargon.
My belief was, and is, that the child's book is a unique and valid art form; a means of dealing with things which cannot be dealt with quite as well in any other way. There is, I'm convinced, no inner, qualitative difference between writing for adults and writing for children. The raw materials are the same for both: the human condition and our response to it. — Lloyd Alexander

The best children's book writers are not people who have kids, but people who write from the child within themselves. — Andrea Brown

A child's imagination can be found in the heart of a good book. — K. Lamb

Does it matter if you read to your child from an ebook or a print book? Each type of book has its own merit. Ebooks are a huge convenience, easy to download and take on a trip. Dictionary features give children the ability to instantly discover the meanings of new words and concepts. Print books have a different type of physical presence and carry a different feeling, as children themselves have pointed out.SALE Inc. According to another, similar national survey, kids say they prefer ebooks when they're out and about and when they don't want their FOR Publ., friends to know what they're reading, but that print is better for sharNOT ing with friends and reading at bedtime.31 It strikes me as interesting that most children still prefer print books before going to sleep. — Anonymous

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun. — Jackie French

Everyone knows you are supposed to read to young children. Well, that's what I hear when I have my kids watch Sesame Street so I can waste time on the Internet. "Read to your children." Interestingly enough, when you hear "Read to your children" on Sesame Street, they never say, "Did you hear me? Do not watch Sesame Street! Turn off the TV and read that kid a book! — Jim Gaffigan

I have children, and this notion - that there might be a single book that introduces children to literature - terrifies me. But you could do worse than Mary Norton's 'The Borrowers.' I loved it as a kid, and my kids love it, too. — Elizabeth McCracken

THE SENTIMENTALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD has produced a great many paradoxes. The most curious, however, may be that children have acquired more and more stuff the more useless they have become. Until the late nineteenth century, when kids were still making vital contributions to the family economy, they didn't have toys as we know them. They played with found and household objects (sticks, pots, brooms). In his book Children at Play, the scholar Howard Chudacoff writes, Some historians even maintain that before the modern era, the most common form of children's play occurred not with toys but with other children - siblings, cousins, and peers. — Jennifer Senior

If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid. — Paul Graham

My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.' — Robin Williams

Every book has it's destiny, Like a human life , Sometime when an Author is dead the destiny of the book begins" The days of Childhood !!!!! — Tushar Upreti

Children make better readers than adults. They read as carefully as I write; adults read as a means of getting off to sleep. I get letters saying 'I have read your book seventeen times.' If you're an adult novelist and you get that letter, you should be afraid. You're being stalked. Kids always read them seventeen times! — Daniel Pinkwater

For some reason, I never felt the need to have kids. My wife feels the same. We don't feel a void. I don't think they would give my life meaning. I do think of the books as my children, though. Whatever is inside of me, I put into my books. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A lot of young viewers, but I also have a lot of older viewers. This chapter is for my older fans - those of you who are slightly more mature. If any kids are reading this book, turn the page now. This chapter is not appropriate for children. It's for adults who experience adult situations, such as eating dinner before 6:00 and struggling to read menus in dim lighting conditions. Many adults, myself included, have trouble reading menus when they go out to eat at restaurants because the font is way too small. I know there are products to help with this problem, like reading and magnifying glasses, but I have a better idea. Make the font size larger. There should be a worldwide standard for menu font size. I've included a sample menu below with a suitable font size. You'll notice — Ellen DeGeneres

When a child keeps asking you to tell him/her a story, what they instinctively really want to know
is their true purpose and mission in life. Sadly, this knowledge was never sought out by their parents, and explains why childrens books are a very hot and lucrative industry. Instead of telling your child the truth of our history and existence, you are conditioned by society to simply read your kid a fairytale. — Suzy Kassem

Artists raise their kids differently. We communicate to the point where we probably annoy our children. We have art around the house, we have books, we go to plays, we talk. Our focus is art and painting and dress-up and singing. It's what we love. So I think you can see how artists in some way raise other artists. — Angelina Jolie

Book is the best friend, have no demand, no complain — Avi Salmon

I write books to change the world. Perhaps I can only change one little piece of that world. But if I can empower teachers and good citizens to give these children, who are the poorest of the poor, the same opportunity we give our own kids, then I'll feel my life has been worth it. — Jonathan Kozol

I like reading books about kids where there weren't really many adults, where they didn't need an adult to come and solve the problems for them. They could use their own ingenuity, use their own talents to solve whatever the issue was. And I like that still. I think that children want to read about heroic children. They don't want to read about children that have to be saved all the time. — John Boyne

If we are always reading aloud something that is more difficult than children can read themselves then when they come to that book later, or books like that, they will be able to read them - which is why even a fifth grade teacher, even a tenth grade teacher, should still be reading to children aloud. There is always something that is too intractable for kids to read on their own. — Mem Fox

I've always felt as if writing a novel is like giving birth. After the process is over, I am emotionally exhausted. But then the work's not done. I have to then raise the book to adulthood, through marketing and giveaways and pandhandling for reviews (its college education). And even while I'm nurturing it into something that is well adjusted and lovable, I've got other "kids" that need equal attention. It truly is work. My hat is off to real parents everywhere, who raise human children and novel ones at the same time. You are amazing. — Ash Gray

But Mother, I don't want to go. It's just that ... I have to. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding in the attic.
[ ... ]
I don't want to be a burden[ ... ]I want to do something with my life. Figure out ways to help other third kids. Make - make a difference in the world. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

When she was little, someone gave her some weird book called The Wife Store. It was about a very lonely man who decided that he wanted to get married. So he went to the wife store, where endless women lined enormous shelves. He picked himself a wife and bought her. She was bagged up and put in a cart. He took her home. After that, the two of them went to the children store to buy a few kids.
Petey read this book over and over. Not because she liked it, but because she kept waiting for the story to change, kept waiting for the day she'd turn the page and a woman would get to the husband store. She kept waiting for justice. But, of course, the story never changed. She never got justice. If Petey were keeping one of her lists of the things she hated, she wold have to add: the fact that there was no justice. But The Wife Store was still on her shelf at home, if only to remind her that there were assholes in the world who would write such things, believe such things. — Laura Ruby

THE most important divide in America today is class, not race, and the place where it matters most is in the home. Conservatives have been banging on about family breakdown for decades. Now one of the nation's most prominent liberal scholars has joined the chorus. Robert Putnam is a former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of "Bowling Alone" (2000), an influential work that lamented the decline of social capital in America. In his new book, "Our Kids", he describes the growing gulf between how the rich and the poor raise their children. Anyone who has read "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray will be familiar with the trend, but Mr Putnam adds striking detail and some excellent graphs (pictured). This is a thoughtful and — Anonymous

I think parents should know what their children are reading, and if they truly object, they should tell their kids why, rather than summarily removing a book from their possession. — Ellen Hopkins

Flap books are the second worst book to read to a group. The worst are books that play sound effects to go along with the text. The whole time you're reading, the children are squabbling every second over who gets to push the button for the crashing cymbals. With flap books, the big problem is trying to stop the kids from tearing the flap right out of the book. It helps to have tape handy. After — Rob Armstrong

A friend suggested that I get a job at a children's book store so I could meet kids and read books, and that turned out to be the single best bit of advice I've ever gotten. — Brian Selznick

My ex-student, Idit Harel, who wrote a book, "Children Designs," has a documented story of a kid who was very shy, isolated and didn't talk much to other kids. She was a little overweight, and the other kids looked down on her for that reason.But then she made a discovery about how to do something on the computer. The discovery was picked up by other kids, and within a few weeks there was a total transformation. This kid was now in demand. And that changed her feeling about herself. — Seymour Papert

KIDS. They know a BRIBE when they see one. They want a PARENT, not a PAY-OFF. They don't care if you're Jack-King-Rodeo or Mister-You-Own-New-York. All they understand is time spent WITH YOU or WITHOUT YOU. It's that SIMPLE. — Carew Papritz

You are an adult and you don't understand me and what are the differences between the adult and the kids?
The kids are dreamming to have sex and the adult's already are one step forward, adults take drugs... and from there and kids start, adults kill and then the children start to kill...
So far everything was build by the adults, I see it. An adult has written a book about sex, about the stuff, an adult has created a website and other stuff of pornography.... It hasn't thought by someone this, when you are small and if you don't see it you don't do it!?
You can't do it, without knowing it... can you?
It's now habbit because you have saw it, once, twice, tripple and some fake thoughts even not fake but false thoughts have been planted in your mind and you start doing it... — Deyth Banger

As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is reading. No one chastises us for our choice. No one says, 'That's too short for you to read.' No one says, 'That's too easy for you, put it back.' No one says 'You couldn't read that if you tried
it's much too difficult.'
Yet if we take a peek into classrooms, libraries, and bookshops we will notice that children's choices are often mocked, censured, and denied as valid by idiotic, interfering teachers, librarians, and parents. Choice is a personal matter that changes with experience, changes with mood, and changes with need. We should let it be. — Mem Fox

I have a bumper sticker that Bowen created that says Regardless of my kids grades, they have an 'A' in my book'. Without play the child that still lives in all of us will always be incomplete. And not only physically, but creatively, intellectually, and spiritually as well. — George A. Sheehan

If books were food, I'd weigh thirty thousand pounds. I devour the things. I'm addicted to reading, and when I'm in the middle of a great book, I'm tempted to tell my kids to eat dog food for dinner. Before you call the Department of Family and Children's Services, I said tempted. I've never actually done that. — Sandi Hutcheson

I am an author-illustrator of children's books - and yet - I must confess I don't do the books for the kids. When I'm working on a book I'm somewhere else - at the circus - or a rustic old farm - or deep in a forest - with no thought of who might read the book or what age group it would appeal to. I write them so I can illustrate them. — Bill Peet

I'd forced books on my kids from the day they were born and, as it turned out, it had been completely unnecessary because all of them liked to read. Or maybe they liked to read because I'd read aloud nearly every children's book in print. — Jeff Shelby

Who's to blame when your kid goes nuts? Is it a blessing to not have children? 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' became a hit cult book for women without offspring who were finally able to admit they didn't want to give birth. They felt complete, thank you very much, and lived in silent resentment for years at other women's pious, unwanted sympathy toward them for not having babies. With even gay couples having children these days, aren't happy heterosexual women who don't want to have kids the most ostracized of us all? To me they are beautiful feminists. If you're not sure you could love your children, please don't have them, because they might grow up and kill us. — John Waters

Humor is the oxygen of children's literature. There's a lot of competition for children's time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book. — Sid Fleischman

I feel like I own all the kids in the world because, since I've never grown up myself, all my books are automatically for children. — Ray Bradbury

Rainbows are said to be beautiful!
Rainbows are said to be colourful!
Rainbows may possibly be magical!
But, I have never seen a rainbow appearing in the sky! — Srinidhi.R

Om Schooled is the perfect manual for anyone who wants to start teaching yoga to kids. This is not just a theoretical book - it is a step-by-step manual. Sarah Herrington shares the wisdom she has gained from her day-to-day experiences, for many years, teaching all ages of children yoga in the New York School system. — Sharon Gannon

So if we're going to keep all kids safe, we have to make incest and child sexual abuse acceptable topics of conversation. When other people want us to keep quiet because the subject makes them uncomfortable, or when someone questions our memory of events, we have to hold to the truth. Sexual abuse of children is preventable! But we can't wait for someone else to act. We're the ones who have to stop this madness. And it starts with each of us telling our story. — Lauren Book

I feel an author and an illustrator weave the magic of a children's picture book together. — Sima Mittal

When it comes to horror there's a strange need to analyze. When "evil children" fad happened, there was The Exorcist and The Other and The Omen. People would say, "What this really means is that Americans don't want to have kids anymore. They feel hostility towards their own children. They feel they're being tied down and dragged down." In fact, in most cases, what those books are about is nice children who are beset by forces beyond their control. — Stephen King

You've got to give kids really beautiful children's books in order to turn them into revolutionaries. Because if they see these beautiful things when they're young, when they grow up they'll see the real world and say, 'Why is the world so ugly?! I remember when the world was beautiful.' And then they'll fight, and they'll have a revolution. They'll fight against all of our corruption in the world, they'll fight to try to make the world more beautiful. That's the job of a good children's book illustrator. — Tony Millionaire

I worry very much about kids growing up in a society where they think: "I'm not going to talk about this issue, read this book or explore this idea because someone may think I'm a terrorist." That's not the kind of free society I want for our children. — Bernie Sanders

Having children takes the focus off yourself, which I'm really grateful for. I'm so tired of thinking about myself. I'm sick of myself. You feel you want to be there and not miss out on anything. It's a true joy and a very profound love. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is the most extraordinary thing I've ever taken on. — Brad Pitt

My best ideas come to me at unexpected moments, like when I'm reading children's books to my kids (the pictures inspire me), shopping, driving somewhere, seeing different things. — Mary Engelbreit

I'm also very hopeful to continue my literary journey into the realm of children's books. To be able to read my kids a children's book that was inspired by them would be everything! — Trista Sutter

Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don't even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that's wrong. — Judy Blume

But mostly because he could be himself - never needing to bend. — Niki Alling

I do think, where would kids be if it weren't for you and for the good pediatricians, and for the good parents? I passionately believe in sitting a child on your lap and tracing the lines of the book with your finger, and they can read before they know they can, if you bother enough. I did it with my kids, and they're doing it with their kids now. — Julie Andrews

A terrorist doesn't let strangers into her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home and they run all over the place The terrorist doesn't know that one of these kids has bugged every room in her house, made copies of all her computer files and stolen her address book. The kid works for CHERUB CHERUB agents are aged between 10 and 17. They live in the real world, slipping under adult radar and getting information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail. — Robert Muchamore

Soon after publishing a book for kids, my mailbox began to fill with letters from children all across America. Not because my novels for young readers are bestsellers - they're not by a long shot - but because today's kids love to write to authors. — Rodman Philbrick

The best way to get kids to read a book is to say: 'This book is not appropriate for your age, and it has all sorts of horrible things in it like sex and death and some really big and complicated ideas, and you're better off not touching it until you're all grown up. I'm going to put it on this shelf and leave the room for a while. Don't open it. — Philip Pullman

Kids not only need to read a lot but they need lots of books they can read right at their fingertips.They also need access to books that entice them, attract them to reading. Schools ... can make it easy and unrisky for children to take books home for the evening or weekend by worrying less about losing books to children and more about losing children to illiteracy. — Richard Allington

If you write a kid's book only for kids, then you have failed. — Don Roff

The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble. — Bel Kaufman

The weekly cartoons, as were my plays, came from a sense of criticism, criticism of the times, critical of the culture, of our manners and attitudes towards each other. The children's books come from the reverse. They're more supportive, since we're living in a time where we talk more about kids and do less, we talk about balancing the budget and we do it by cutting education. — Jules Feiffer

I get my ideas for books from my own kids and sometimes from other children. Often when I am telling stories I will say: I am going to make up a new story. — Robert Munsch

Want to inspire your kids to read more? Try giving them kids some money to spend just on a book. Take them to a bookstore and let them browse and pick out one book that they will love. Or try going to a local library for a few hours and just let your kids sift through books that interest them. — Melanie Kirk

The trick in writing children's books is to set up danger, mystery and excitement on page one. Force the kid to turn the page ... Then in the middle of each chapter there's a dramatic point of excitement, and at chapter's end, a cliffhanger. — Jerry West