On Great Kids Books...

There's just something about reading a Junie B. Jones book that makes me want to write a great children's book....

October

"It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet."

Washington Irving in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

August

"It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday...."

Mark Twain, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Catalina

"A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns."

Charles Dickens in Little Dorit

On the Buffalo Hunt

"Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters

Serenity

"Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together..."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Evangeline

Contemplation

"Really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others."

Elizabeth Gaskell in "Cousin Phillis"

March

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations