A Quote for Monday: Betsy Was a Junior

"Our lives can hold just so much.  If they're filled with one thing, they can't be filled with another.  We ought to do a lot of thinking about what we want to fill them with."


Julia makes this statement in the middle of Betsy Was a Junior, and it prompts Betsy to muse about how she's been spending her time during her junior year of high school, and what she might do differently.

As part of the Maud Hart Lovelace reading challenge hosted by A Library is a Hospital for the Mind, this month's Monday quotes are from Maud Hart Lovelace books.  I am so enjoying re-reading the high school Betsy-Tacy books.

A Quote for Monday: Betsy Was a Junior

"I never knew, until I went away from home, how nice we all are!" Julia sobbed.


All this month, my Monday quotes are from Betsy-Tacy books in honor of the Maud Hart Lovelace Reading Challenge, sponsored by Sarah at A Library is a Hospital for the Mind.

Julia, Betsy's older sister, surprises the Rays with a visit home from the "U" midway through this wonderful book.    She is somewhat homesick, and her family misses her, so the visit is especially emotional.  There's something so delightful about this quote, about being part of a loving family and only realizing it when you are away.

A Quote for Monday: Betsy & Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

"There was a crowd of people, and teasing could be very hard.  But this was serious.  If it was against the law to write to kings and they were going to be sent to jail, their mothers might as well know it.  Their fathers would have to get them out."

I just love this quote from near the end of Betsy & Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, when the girls receive a letter back from the young King of Spain after writing to him and offering Tib as his bride.  The girls, 10-year-olds, are worried that perhaps they broke the law by writing to him.  So dear!

All this month, I'm doing quotes from Betsy-Tacy books during The Maud Hart Lovelace Reading Challenge, sponsored by Sarah at A Library is a Hospital for the Mind.

A Quote for Monday: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

"You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up."

Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill.


As part of the Maud Hart Lovelace reading challenge hosted by A Library is a Hospital for the Mind, this month's quotes for Monday will be henceforth from her books.

I love this quote from the third in the Betsy-Tacy series, which opens with Betsy turning 10 and being the subject of a surprise party.  How great to turn 10 and have a party like Betsy's, as well as all the adventures she, Tacy and Tib have

A Quote for Monday: The Last Catholic in America

I recently discovered Loyola Press Catholic Classics series.  These were reprints started in 2005 of several dozen classic novels from the 20th century, from great authors like Rumer Godden (In This House of Brede), Edwin O'Connor (The Edge of Sadness) and A.J. Cronin (The Keys of the Kingdom).  There are also books I don't like as much, such as Mr. Blue by Myles Connolly, but lots of people I love and respect like that one, so there is something for everyone in the series.  A new discovery for me was John R. Powers' The Last Catholic in America.  This is a very bittersweet novel, a young man, a "fallen-away Catholic," as the novel reveals slowly, travels back to the south side of Chicago to revisit his parish neighborhood, and reminisces about growing up in pre-Vatican II Catholic America.  At one point, the narrator recounts his first confession and one soon after as a 2nd grader when he thinks he has committed a mortal sin, and a later confession:

What a fantastic feeling!  To come back from the spiritually dead.  To be free from sin! free from sin! free from sin!  As I walked through the neighborhood, brown igloos of raked leaves smoldered lazily, scening the air with their familiar fall fragrance.  The world fit so comfortably around me that everything I saw and heard seemed as if it had just been given, as I had, a brand-new shot at life.....

And I remember the last one.  Kneeling in a confessional in some city's cathedral.  When the priest asked me if I was sorry for my sins, in a moment of indifference, I gave him an honest answer.  He shouted.  I left.  By then, there was more than a darkened window separating us.

Down the steps of the cathedral knowing, no, hoping in my mind that I was right, yet realizing I was never again to feel that resurgence of faith in my own and the world's immortality.  Never again to experience the exhilaration of rising from the spiritually dead.  Never again to be free from sin, free from sin, free from sin.

A Quote for Monday: The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum

"Straightaway the mariners took to the oars, then hoisted their sails, and the ship sped on like a strong sea bird. Odysseus slept. And lightly the ship sped on, bearing the man who had suffered so much sorrow of heart in passing through wars of men and through troublous seas--the ship sped on, and he slept, and he was forgetful of all he had passed through."


--Padraic Colum, The Children's Homer.


My 8-year-old son and I have been reading aloud from this book recently.   I think I got the version of the book we are reading when our family was in England last year, but I see it is available on Kindle inexpensively. 


Wow, what an amazing version of the story of Odysseus!  We have read lots of Greek and Roman myths through Usborne books and various picture books, and I had downloaded an App with the text of the Odyssey, but couldn't really get myself into the rhythm of reading the poetry.  This is an excellent introduction of these fantastic classic stories that everyone should know.  Colum's skill with the English language (in I'm sure echoing & translating the original poetry) is just beautiful, as the above quote shows.


After we finish this, we will move on to more Padraic Colum:  The Golden Fleece: Heroes Before Achilles and The Children of Odin.

A Quote for Monday: Jeremiah 29:11-14

Yes, I know what plans I have in mind for you, the Lord declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  When you call to me and come and pray to me, I shall listen to you.  When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me.

 

I took this from the New Jerusalem bible translation, but I also like the translation from the New American Bible:

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.  When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you.  When you look for me, you will find me.  Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord.

I could spend more time looking up different translations but I'd rather work on memorizing this quote.