A Song for Summer

by Eva Ibbotson

She followed Sophie into the castle. The rooms, with their high ceilings, gilded cornices and white tiled stoves, were as beautiful and neglected as the grounds. But when she reached the top floor and Sophie said: 'This is your room,' Ellen could only draw in her breath and say: 'Oh Sophie, how absolutely wonderful!'

The child looked round, her brow furrowed. The room contained a broken spinning wheel, a rolled up scroll painting of the Buddha (partly eaten by mice) and a pile of mouldering Left Book Club paperbacks -- all left behind by various housemothers who had not felt equal to the job.

But Ellen had gone straight to the window.

She was part of the sky, inhabiting it. One could ride these not very serious clouds, touch angels or birds, meet witches. White ones, of course, with functional broomsticks, who felt as she did about the world.

Lost in the light, the infinity of space that would be hers each day, she lowered her eyes only gradually to the famous view: the serrated snow peaks on the other shore, the climbing fir trees above the village, the blue oblong of water with its solitary island across which the steamer was chugging, returning to its base.

Sophie waited. Her own view was the same -- the room she shared with two other girls was only just down the corridor -- but when she looked out of the window something always got in the way: images of her warring parents, the terror of abandonment, the letters that did not come. Now for a moment she saw what Ellen saw.

When Ellen spoke again it was to ask a question. 'Are there storks here, Sophie? Do you have them at Hallendorf?'

'I don't think so.'

'We must get some,' said Ellen decidedly. 'We must make them come. Storks are lovely; they bless a house, did you know?'

Sophie considered this. 'It could be difficult about the blessing,' she said, 'because we don't have anybody to do it here. We don't have God.'

'Ah well,' said Ellen, turning back into the room. 'One thing at a time.'

Swan Lake

by Mark Helprin

I was sitting on one of our former tutorial benches, under an overhanging eave in the kitchen courtyard. It was raining heavily, as it must in spring to melt the snow so that summer can blaze across the steppes in green and blue. Watching the rain collide at an angle with a brick wall and then run down it in a tight embrace, I was trying to determine why at a certain volume and force the water bounced off, and why, if neither was sufficient, it didn't. I came to the conclusion that the gross mechanics were directly attributable to the molecular structure of the water, and that the thresholds of adhesion were determined by group particle affinity.

I believe I was slightly ahead of my time.

Secret Heart

by David Almond

Joe felt the lark singing inside him and the tiger prowling inside him. he looked at the teacher, and knew that Bleak Winters was never anything except Bleak Winters. He looked at the children. He knew that they, like him, might have larks and tigers inside them, but they kept them hidden, and one day their larks and tigers might disappear, just as Bleak Winters' had. He wanted to tell them this, he wanted to draw them away from Winters and toward the tent and the wasteland, but he didn't have the words.

----------

They wandered across the stony earth.

"Maybe you are Tomasso," said Corinna. "Maybe you are and you don't know it. Maybe we're all something else and we don't know it."

----------

Joe closed his eyes. He felt Nanty's hands cradling his head, and he felt how tender they were.

"How can a thing like a head be held within a lady's finger?" she whispered. "Here's dreams and memories and ancient tales that's being told and told. Here's stars that shine a billion miles away and deep dark caves and forests and Helmouth and teachers and mothers and horns of unicorns and the stripes of tigers. Here's a thing that's bigger than the world and all the worlds there ever was. And look. All held within a little tent of tender bone and skin and cradled in a lady's fingers. How can this be so?"

Joe licked his lips, attempted no answer.

"There's them that say they know how it is so. They look inside the tender bone and skin and tell us what's inside and how it came to be there and what's right in there and what's wrong in there." She sighed. Her fingers shifted, and it was as if they melted and began to mingle with the bone and skin of his skull. "There is them that has already tried to tell you this, Joe Maloney. Isn't there?"

"Y-y-"

"Do not believe them when they tell you, Joe Maloney."

He heard the squeak of the lid as she opened the box.

"What would happen if Joe Maloney's head was lifted open? What would happen if they looked inside to take something out? What would happen to Joe Maloney's worlds?"

"Dun-dunn-"

"Nor does Nanty. Where does the dreams go when the tent of bone is broke?"

An American Childhood

by Annie Dillard

Late at night on Christmas Eve, she carried us to our high bedroom, and darkened the room, and opened the window, and held us awed in the freezing stillness, saying--and we could hear the edge of tears in her voice--"Do you hear them? Do you hear the bells, the little bells, on Santa's sleigh?" We marveled and drowsed, smelling the piercingly cold night and the sweetness of Mother's warm neck, hearing in her voice so much pent emotion, feeling the familiar strength in the crook of her arms, and looking out over the silent streetlights and the chilled stars over the rooftops of the town. "Very faint, and far away--can you hear them coming?" And we could hear them coming, very faint and far away, the bells on the flying sleigh.

Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone

by J.K. Rowling

There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

winner

Well, ang... It's you!

Comment #1 - Journal of Healing.

Thanks for the entries, everyone. I have added your faves to my reading list and look forward to enjoying them myself. You are all lovely for humoring me.
Long live the written word! --V

mission accomplished

This morning I finished my 100th book of 2010! To celebrate, I've decided to give away one of my faves from this year.

Here are your choices:
- The Hotel Under the Sand, by Kage Baker
- An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken
- The Ingenious Edgar Jones, by Elizabeth Garner
- The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry
- The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison


To enter, simply leave a comment telling me which book you might like to win. For a bonus entry: tell me the title/author of one of your favorite books.

Thanks for playing! --V