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Memoirs of a Bookbat Quotes
Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
by
Kathryn Lasky267 ratings, 4.08 average rating, 33 reviews
Memoirs of a Bookbat Quotes
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“Nettie turned her eyes toward me. "Bookworm, are you?"
The way she said that word absolutely made my skin crawl. She made me sound like I was some spineless, mindless creature living on mold underground. I do love books, but there is nothing wormy about it. I would much prefer to be called a bat than a worm any day of the week.
Just that afternoon at the library storytime, Nancy had read a beautiful poem about a baby bat being born. It described the bats' "sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces." It told how they soared and looped through the night, how they listened by sending out what the poet called "shining needlepoints of sound." Bats live by hearing. I realized, standing in front of Nettie right then, that when I read I am like a bat soaring and swooping through the night, skimming across the treetops to find my way through the densest forest in the darkest night. I listen to the shining needlepoints of sound in every book I read. I am no bookworm. I am the bookbat.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
The way she said that word absolutely made my skin crawl. She made me sound like I was some spineless, mindless creature living on mold underground. I do love books, but there is nothing wormy about it. I would much prefer to be called a bat than a worm any day of the week.
Just that afternoon at the library storytime, Nancy had read a beautiful poem about a baby bat being born. It described the bats' "sharp ears, their sharp teeth, their quick sharp faces." It told how they soared and looped through the night, how they listened by sending out what the poet called "shining needlepoints of sound." Bats live by hearing. I realized, standing in front of Nettie right then, that when I read I am like a bat soaring and swooping through the night, skimming across the treetops to find my way through the densest forest in the darkest night. I listen to the shining needlepoints of sound in every book I read. I am no bookworm. I am the bookbat.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
“To belong did not mean ownership. You were not someone’s property. The “be” syllable was about existence: “to be” yourself and “to be” in a special place that no one else could occupy within your family except you. The “long” part was about the heart, a place in the heart where a family met and lived together. They didn’t just put up with each other. They longed for each other. To belong was not a state of mind but a state of heart.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
“I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just that he knew about Narnia. I could tell that he knew what I meant by a Narnia cubby. It was all there in his eyes. He knew that I didn’t actually think I was Lucy going through a real door to magical lands. He knew that the cubby in the Roadmaster was a sane person’s ticket to freedom of thought.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
“It was in Durmond that I made the wonderful discovery of interlibrary loan, the greatest invention since the light bulb.
[…]
All the libraries were linked together, so no matter where I moved, as long as I had a library card I would be part of a web as powerful and beautiful as the one in Charlotte’s Web. Just as Charlotte the spider wrote messages in her web that transformed Wilbur the ordinary pig into “some pig,” this web would transform me. I would eventually collect nearly fifty different library cards. I was snagged forever in the wonderful web of the public library system.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
[…]
All the libraries were linked together, so no matter where I moved, as long as I had a library card I would be part of a web as powerful and beautiful as the one in Charlotte’s Web. Just as Charlotte the spider wrote messages in her web that transformed Wilbur the ordinary pig into “some pig,” this web would transform me. I would eventually collect nearly fifty different library cards. I was snagged forever in the wonderful web of the public library system.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
“I just love the way those old-time authors like Mr. Dickens or George Eliot (who was actually a woman, in case you didn’t know) stop smack-dab in the middle of the story and say stuff like, “patient reader,” and then give some little side comment.”
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
― Memoirs of a Bookbat: A YA Novel About an Avid Reader, Family Censorship, and the Hardest Choice
