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It is often the case that, at times of great anxiety, when the diversion of a good story should seem most welcome, one is least equipped to focus one’s mind on reading.
The first words of a new book are so delicious—like the first taste of a cookie fresh from the oven and not yet properly cooled.
Fibs, you must know, are entirely acceptable when they serve the purpose of getting one to the library.
Inside, the children were greeted by the sort of cool and reverent silence known only to places that house books
William, Edmund, and Anna knew, somewhere deep in the place where we know things that we cannot say aloud, that they had never lived in the sort of home one reads about in stories—one of warmth and affection and certainty in the knowledge that someone believes you hung the moon. The grandmother had provided for them. When they were small, before they’d been sent off to boarding school, there had been kind nannies. Miss Collins had always been dear and affectionate. But affection is not the same thing as proper family love. This sort of love, the children knew only from one another—and from
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The stealing of sweets, after all, is an act committed only by those with unspeakably black souls.
It takes some time to let go of anger, especially when sweets are involved.
She knew she ought not to eavesdrop, but there is nothing so compelling as the sound of a whisper just within one’s reach.
“To be blamed for something one did not do is a painful injustice indeed.”
“When they got married, Mum and Dad had towels with their names sewn on.” Anna’s voice came from under the blanket again. “Their names?” “Well, their initials.” “Why?” Edmund asked. “Were they afraid someone might steal their towels?” “No, silly,” William said. “That’s just what grown-ups do.” The children fell asleep at last, wondering at the gross misalignment of adults’ priorities.
as there are surely special fires reserved down below for those who throw snowballs at small children.
The librarian took this all in, standing by the fire and observing the children for a while, letting the silence be. Somehow, it didn’t feel awkward, the way silences often do. Perhaps librarians are more used to quiet than most.
Though she’s not much of a reader.” She paused. “Evidence as to her character.”
This story, this night, was unlike any other. As the children sank into sleep, the words of the familiar rhyming tale were comfort and tenderness, ritual and home. A sort of prayer. A sort of lullaby. It set them on the path to dreams that felt rather like hope.
