Day 23 - A picture of your favorite book.

I gain a new book every year. Here's the last ten years of  my life:

2001:

Ramona the Brave by: Beverly Cleary

     "Ramona slid out of her seat. Her chest felt tighter. Her head told her to keep her hands to her self, her hands did not obey. They seized Susan's owl. They crushed her owl with the sound of crackling paper. Susan gasped. Ramona twisted the owl as hard as she could until it was nothing but an old paper bag with scribbled with crayon. Without meaning to, Ramona had done a terrible thing."

This was the first chapter book I ever read on my own. It sums up everything I felt when I was a kid. Ramona was out of place a lot but she was turned out to be herself in the end. I learned at a young age to be exactly who you are despite who you are around.

2002:

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window by: Lemony Snicket

"If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats."

2003:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by: J.K. Rowling

"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory." 

2004:

The Giver by: Lois Lowry

"Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."

2005:

The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants by: Ann Brashares

"Maybe happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty more levels to go.Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks- the traffic signal that said "Walk" the second you go there- and downticks- the itch tag at the back of your collar- that happened to every person in the course of the day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.Maybe it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying.Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for."

2006:

Speak by: Laurie Halse Anderson

"THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 

1. We are here to help you. 
2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 
3. The dress code will be enforced. 
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds. 
5. Our football team will win the championship this year. 
6. We expect more of you here. 
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen. 
8. Your schedule was created with you in mind. 
9. Your locker combination is private. 
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly. 

TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 

1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 
3. Students must stay on campus during lunch. 
4. The new text books will arrive any day now. 
5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores. 
6. We are enforcing the dress code. 
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 
10. We want to hear what you have to say." 

2007:

My Antonia by: Willa Cather

“There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.”

2008:

Love, Stargirl by: Jerry Spinelli

"Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry? You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know." 

2009:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by: Khaled Hosseini

"Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings." 

2010:

The Princess Bride: William Goldman

"Don't you understand anything that's going on?
Buttercup shook her head.
Westley shook his too. "You never have been the brightest, I guess."
"Do you love me, Westley? Is that it?"
He couldn't believe it. "Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches! If your love were -"
"I don't understand that first one yet," Buttercup interrupted. She was starting to get very excited now. 

"Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images confuse me so - is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we're on the verge of something just terribly important."

"I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard."