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I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody; I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life; I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself, and I wouldn't mind a map; I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they're beginning to run out of material; I read because every journey begins at the library, and it's time fo..
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Richard Peck |
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Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.
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Richard Peck |
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Read to your children Twenty minutes a day; You have the time, And so do they. Read while the laundry is in the machine; Read while the dinner cooks; Tuck a child in the crook of your arm And reach for the library books. Hide the remote, Let the computer games cool, For one day your children will be off to school; Remedial? Gifted? You have the choice; Let them hear their first tales In the sound of your voice. Read in the morning; Read ove..
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Richard Peck |
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The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized.
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Richard Peck |
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But put two librarians' heads together, and mountains move.
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Richard Peck |
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Grandma, how old is she?" "Oh I don't know." Grandma said. "You'd have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck."
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Richard Peck |
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Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.
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Richard Peck |
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This is how you hold onto your family. You hold them with open hands so they are free to find futures of their own. It's just that simple.
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Richard Peck |
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September 11 We thought we'd outdistanced history Told our children it was nowhere near; Even when history struck Columbine, It didn't happen here. We took down the maps in the classroom, And when they were safely furled, We told the young what they wanted to hear, That they were immune from a menacing world. But history isn't a folded-up map, Or an unread textbook tome; Now we know history's a fireman's child Waiting at home alone.
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Richard Peck |
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If you're going to read minds, start with a simple one.
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Richard Peck |
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That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart.
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Richard Peck |
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I caught a glimpse of happiness, and saw it was a bird on a branch, fixing to take wing.
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Richard Peck |
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they'd just tell you to turn the other cheek, wouldn't they?...Trouble is, Mrs. Dowdel observed, after you've turned the other cheek four times, you run out of cheeks.
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Richard Peck |
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At last she said, "Them Burdicks isn't worth the powder and shot to blow them up. They're like a pack of hound dogs. They'll chase livestock, suck eggs, and lick the skillet. And steal? They'd steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke."
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Richard Peck |
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Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.
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Richard Peck |
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She said that time was like the Mississippi River. It only flows in one direction. She meant you could never go back. But of course we had. She'd taken me back.
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Richard Peck |
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She had eyes in the back of her heart.
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Richard Peck |
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Besdies, to turn me ladylike might have rendered me useless and possibly ornamental.
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Richard Peck |
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Stay away from people who don't know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who'll want to label you. People who'll try to write their fears on your face.
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labels
fear
haters
jerks
projecting
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Richard Peck |
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This was something Grandma Tilly couldn't understand---how war promises a boy it can make a man out of him.
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Richard Peck |
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Nobody but a reader becomes a writer.
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Richard Peck |
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Fiction isn't what 'was'. It's 'what if'?
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Richard Peck |
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We'd gotten him wrong. He wasn't a dunce. He was an artist. According to these pages, he'd seen us all a good deal clearer than we'd ever seen him.
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Richard Peck |
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A solider must leave someone behind,' she said. 'What men do best is walk away from women. Wars are handy for that.
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Richard Peck |
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Blue lightning flashed in the kitchen, and for a split second you could see every calendar on the wall in there. Than an almighty explosion like the crack of doom. She'd rolled a cherry bomb across the floor, and it went off right under the eight feet of the Cowgill brothers, the three big bruisers and Ernie.
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Richard Peck |
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I seen but little of this world, Except my corner of it; The city never drew me, For I knew I could not love it. What I loved best was watching The garden getting ripe And a pouch of sweet tobacco And my old cob pipe. What I loved best was a harvest moon Before a frosty morn And lamplight in the barn lot And them long, straight rows of corn. I was plain and country; That's where it starts and ends, But nobody loved her family more, Or treas..
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Richard Peck |
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I don't think grandma's a very good influence on us.
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Richard Peck |
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And I'll tell you something else for free. If you set a foot over that doorsill, I'll wring your red neck.
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Richard Peck |
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As I pen these words to leave a lasting record, I wonder myself where it all began.
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fiction
truth
handwritten
lasting
pen
second-sight
where
prologue
girls
ghosts
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Richard Peck |
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Fame is a funny thing, like a secret, both are hard to keep.
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secrets
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Richard Peck |
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The sobs came then, faster than she could swallow. A teacher dares not cry, not a real teacher.
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Richard Peck |
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And don't look for anything out of the law around here," she said. "The Cowgills and the Leapers is kin to the sheriff. No justice in these parts. It's every man for hisself." "But as the saying goes, if you can't get justice," Mrs. Dowdel remarked, "get even."
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Richard Peck |
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We thought he was weird. He thought we were weird. It was great. It was what multiculturalism ought to be" -Archer"
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Richard Peck |
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The trenches are all filled in, but the boys are still dying.' Then I could read her thoughts and I knew what this day meant. Mrs. Abernathy's son could have been my dad.
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Richard Peck |
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A Seth Thomas steeple clock stood on a high shelf. When it struck ten, Grandma jerked awake. She looked around the room astonished. It was her belief that she never slept, not even in bed.
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Richard Peck |
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So there is some justice in this world, though not a lot.
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Richard Peck |
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I am here to help her learn," Tansy said, "not to keep her from it." --
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teach
learn
school
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Richard Peck |
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Yes, I think you'll find that all the best teachers are old bats.
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Richard Peck |
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At school we practiced for the Christmas program all month long. Miss Butler couldn't sing either, but she was a feisty director. . . . She took the Christmas program personally, as teachers do.
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Richard Peck |
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Then a lady flounced up and perched on the seat opposite. She had a full bird on the wing sewn to the crown of her hat, and she was painted up like a circus pony, so we took her to be from Chicago.
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Richard Peck |
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We had to scramble for seats in the day coach, lugging one straw valise between us and a gallon jug of lemonade. And a thermos bottle of the kind the Spanish-American War soldiers carried, with our own well water for brushing our teeth. We'd heard that St. Louis water comes straight out of the Mississippi River, and there's enough silt in it to settle at the bottom of the glass. We'd go to their fair, but we weren't going to drink their wat..
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Richard Peck |
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Hayseeds we might be, but we meant to be informed hayseeds.
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Richard Peck |
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But later when I was a teacher, an English teacher naturally, my students preferred fiction to reality. They were in junior high, and so they preferred ANYTHING to reality.
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Richard Peck |
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The Shambaughs came, bringing Letty. She simpered up to me. Her eyes summed up the lace tippets on my Princess dress and the wide taffeta sash that was cutting me in half. "Well, Blossom, just look at you!" she said in her mother's own grown-up voice. "I have always said a good dress will cover up any flaw." "Then you had better get one like it," I replied."
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Richard Peck |