Kidlit Quotes & Sayings

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

It is natural if you feel as strongly as most decent people do about racial discrimination to welcome books that give it short shrift; but to assess books on their racial attitude rather than their literary value, and still more to look on books as ammunition in the battle, is to take a further and still more dangerous step from literature-as-morality to literature-as-propaganda - a move toward conditions in which, hitherto, literary art has signally failed to thrive.

("Didacticism in Modern Dress" from Only Connect (2nd ed., 1980). — John Rowe Townsend

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

Books are like ice cream; there is a flavor for everyone! — K. Lamb

That was the moment when Alice knew for sure that she and Charlie Erdling would be friends for the rest of their lives. — Sarah Weeks

Being a humble person, she gave her pie shop a humble name - PIE. — Sarah Weeks

Trust me, there are things in this mountain that will make your jaw bounce off the floor. — Jaleigh Johnson

Food tastes better when you wear it! — Erin Dealey

Wait. Is a real, live adult person actually asking me details about the games I play? This is unheard of. — Denis Markell

I can't believe I thought this was going to be boring. This is great! — Denis Markell

As a rule, she didn't like boys very much, but she had to admit, Charlie was actually pretty nice. — Sarah Weeks

It seems like the best escape games come from Japan for some reason. It makes me proud. — Denis Markell

Junk?" Lina repeated, incredulous. Oh, she wasn't about to let that pass. — Jaleigh Johnson

I turn back to the Archers, who don't look like the same species as us. Do they even sweat, these people? — Denis Markell

At this moment, I know that the answer has to be yes. I am defeated. By my own father. How Darth Vader. — Denis Markell

To my faithful readers, because a book is like a pie - the only thing more satisfying than cooking up the story is knowing that somebody might be out there eating it up with a spoon. — Sarah Weeks

So you're a reader," My mom sighs, as if somehow this elevates Isabel to yet another realm of perfection. — Denis Markell

Of course, that's how life is. A turn of events may seem very small at the time it's happening, but you never really know, do you? How can you? — Tom Xavier

When we've decided to tell the truth in a story, we should tell good, strong versions of it, proper versions that kids can do something with. — Celine Kiernan

The villagers marked the time in two ways: before the swamp and after. What came before was good. And all that came after was not. — Melanie Crowder

Reading to younger children has come to be more or less an accepted thing, but reading to older children or to a family group is done less today with all the other attractions taking the time. Reading to a group provides a unity, a cohesion, that is wonderful. It is common bond of interest. It brings up plenty of things for family talk and discussion. A child who has been read to shows results in his speech and wider experience with languages. And definitely, if the reading is of good books, it is the beginning of good taste in literature. — Phyllis R. Fenner

Lardo was getting on in years, and his big belly tended to slow him down a bit. — Sarah Weeks

Every child deserves to be a boat cast out in a sea of books. — K. Lamb

Childhood only comes around once. Make your child's memories special. Take them on a new adventure each day. It is as simple as opening a book. — K. Lamb

Ii believe in magic, therefore tsrap it in a book — Karen Emma Hall

Polly had a gift for baking pies, and she poured her heart and soul into every one she made. — Sarah Weeks

While they read these stories, moreover - and this is a comforting thought for those who believe that the best way for anyone to become a lover of real literature is to be exposed to it early and often - boys and girls are not only gratifying their love for a
stirring tale, they are making the acquaintance of the great story-tellers of the past, taking them into their lives as companions. This early contact gives children an experience which will keep their horizon in after life from being entirely circumscribed by the mediocre and ephemeral. If a boy has sailed the wine dark Aegean, or climbed a height whence he could watch Roland's last heroic stand in the Pass of Roncevaux, some gleam remains, and there is far less likelihood that his adult reading will be entirely commonplace. — Anne Thaxter Eaton

One of my pet irritations today is the whole idea that the great interest and upsurge in books about black life has just come along. 1937 and 1938 were the years when the interest in this whole subject was born.

from "Guidelines for Black Books: An Open Letter to Juvenile Editors" (1969) in Children and Literature (1973) — Augusta Baker

I believe in magic, therefore trap it in a book — Karen Emma Hall

The child cannot too early learn to be a good citizen? I think this is questionable: citizenship is an adult affair. Let school and home teach the child to respect the laws and institutions of his country. For the time being that should suffice. To use the juvenile novel or biography to turn the child into an internationalist or an advocate of racial tolerance may be high-minded, but I would suggest that the child first be allowed to turn into a boy or girl. Pious Little Rollo is dead; the Good Little Citizen is replacing him. The moralistic literature of the last century tried to produce small paragons of virtue. How about our urge to manufacture small paragons of social consciousness? — Clifton Fadiman

They came generally from people writing theses on fantasy or on the Dark Is Rising books. They were full of questions I'd never thought about and false assumptions that I didn't want to think about. They would ask me in great detail for, say, the specific local and mythical derivations of my Greenwitch, a leaf-figure thrown over a Cornish cliff as a fertility sacrifice, and I would have to write back and say, "I'm terribly sorry; I made it all up." They told me I echoed Hassidic myth, which I hadn't read, and the Mormon suprastructure, which I'd never even heard of. They saw symbols and buried meanings and allegories everywhere. I'd thought I was making a clear soup, but for them it was a thick mysterious stew.

from "In Defense of the the Artist" in Signposts to Criticism of Children's Literature (1983) — Susan Cooper

Alice wondered if her mother was aware that she wasn't the only one in town who'd come down with a bad case of Blueberry Fever. — Sarah Weeks

Dad has shamelessly played the Mom card. Against which there is no defense. — Denis Markell