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280d246
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I want to make a memorial for our turkey. Never has a bird been so tortured to provide such a lousy dinner.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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900691f
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The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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cc5dd13
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Mr. Freeman sighs. "No imagination. What are you thirteen? Fourteen? You've already let them beat your creativity out of you!"
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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0abd6d4
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Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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55544d3
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Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.
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banned-books-week
books
censorship
freedom-to-read
ideas
intellectual-freedom
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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2e23de4
|
This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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bd5ecd6
|
Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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3bea16d
|
He doesn't see my breasts or my waist or my hips. He only sees the nightmare.
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eating-disorders
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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f592be1
|
It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones. It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break -- these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't ..
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scarlet-letter
symbolism
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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d44811a
|
We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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02dd549
|
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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6701a62
|
Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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46a084b
|
I wish I had cancer. I will burn in hell for that, but it's true.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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9c335e7
|
Why are you being so mean?" "Friends tell friends the truth." "yeah, but not to hurt, to help." --
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inspirational
life
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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e22d79f
|
First thought: It was a dream Second thought: No it wasn't Third thought: Crap
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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20e0e30
|
I can't tell anymore when I'm asleep and when I'm awake, or which is worse.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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d4c6b93
|
There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke th..
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families
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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b48d79d
|
Who cares what the color means? How do you know what he meant to say? I mean, did he leave another book called "Symbolism in My Books?" If he didn't, then you could just be making all of this up. Does anyone really think this guy sat down and stuck all kinds of hidden meanings into his story? It's just a story.... But I think you are making all of this symbolism stuff up. I don't believe any of it."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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8bca5ea
|
If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in si..
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eating-disorders
families
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
83db120
|
Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister? Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now. PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass. ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass. Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one. PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass.
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school
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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36d4ea3
|
A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree. Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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63f6e66
|
She offered herself to the big, bad wolf and didn't scream when he took the first bite.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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8f4fe87
|
A scar is a sign of strength. . .the sign of a survivor.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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4432bdd
|
I don't know how they do it. I don't know how anybody does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no grades below a B, because really, nobody's average, not..
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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5f0fae3
|
I'm learning how to taste everything.
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recovery
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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38ea92a
|
Mr Freeman: "Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag." He sticks his finger down his throat. "The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or pain- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat, or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't express themselves, they die on piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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29b0d3e
|
The number doesn't matter. If I got down to 070.00, I'd want to be 065.00. If I weight 010.00, I wouldn't be happy until I got down to 005.00. The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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1845664
|
I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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8cab3fb
|
Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
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speak
tree
young-adult-fiction
|
laurie halse anderson |
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8e6b982
|
It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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7a7721e
|
You're not dead, but you're not alive, either. You're a wintergirl.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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97f6689
|
I knew it!" He pumps a fist into the air. "You've fallen in love with me. You want to have my babies. We'll get a team of horses and a covered wagon and we'll journey to South America and raise goats."
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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ce6422b
|
Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
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Laurie Halse Anderson |
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13202cc
|
My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday?
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funny
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
bbb1439
|
Rumors are spread by jealous people
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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88a87ea
|
I make it through the first two weeks of school without a nuclear meltdown.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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920d0f3
|
This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values....
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birds
tree
turkey
yourself
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
682d5ed
|
I just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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85ecb20
|
My face becomes a Picasso sketch, my body slicing into pieces.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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792db1d
|
We tilt our heads back and open wide. The snow drifts into our zombie mouths crawling with grease and curses and tobacco flakes and cavities and boyfriend/girlfriend juice, the stain of lies. For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds. For one breath everything feels better. Then it melts. The bus drivers rev the..
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truth
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
8a4001d
|
My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.
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teachers
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
2b39ad5
|
I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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6ac78d8
|
I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.
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|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
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31f2a99
|
Why bother trying? What was the point? So I could go to some suck-ass college, get a diploma, march out into a job that I hated, marry a pretty girl who would want to divorce me, but then she wouldn't because we'd have kids, so instead she'd be the angry woman at the other end of the kitchen table, and the kids would grow up watching this, until one day I'd look at my son and he'd look just like that face in the bathroom mirror? If that wa..
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Laurie Halse Anderson |