Writer's Notebook
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
-Leo Tolstoy
“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
"He says pajamas are good for the soul." - Rebecca Stead
"Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry.
But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore" - When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
"I love books. I love that moment when you can open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be." - Elizabet Scott
"Be the teacher you want your children to have”- Dr. Shoemaker
"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
"We cannot give them long family suppers full of shared stories, rainbow-colored markers and sheaves of drawing paper, photograph albums full of memories, and beautiful picture books lined up beside their beds. We can't give children rich lives, but we can give them the lens to appreciate the richness that is already there in their lives. Notebooks validate a child's existence. Notebooks say, "Your thoughts, your noticings, your fleet of orange slices matter." - Lucy Calkins
"What room can there be in that cramped skull for thoughts, imaginations, questions, wonders, for all that makes us human?"
-Peter Dickinson
· “We cannot change what we teach the children, but we can change how they learn the content (process)”.
- Kelly Parker