What the Dormouse Said Read online

  What the Dormouse Said

  Lessons for Grown-ups from Children’s Books

  Collected by AMY GASH

  Illustrations by PIERRE LE-TAN Foreword by JUDITH VIORST

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  LONG AFTER LITERATURE for adults has gone to pieces, books for children will continue to constitute the last vestige of storytelling, logic, faith in the family, in God, and in real humanism.

  Children . . . are highly serious people. . . . We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.

  —Stories for Children, ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, 1984

  Contents

  Foreword by Judith Viorst

  What I Learned from Children’s Books

  FAITH AND COURAGE

  DEFIANCE

  IMAGINATION AND ADVENTURE

  ANIMALS

  LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

  PRACTICAL MUSINGS

  CHARACTER AND INDIVIDUALITY

  FAMILY WOES

  ACCEPTANCE

  EATING HABITS

  NATURE

  SADNESS

  GOODNESS

  MORE PRACTICAL MUSINGS

  GREED, ENVY, PRIDE, AND SLOTH

  SONGS AND STORIES

  GROWING WISE

  SILENCE

  HIDDEN TRUTHS

  REVERENCE

  GROWING OLD

  Index by Books

  Acknowledgments and Permissions

  Foreword

  by Judith Viorst

  While I was reading the pages of this book, I found myself leafing through family photograph albums. I paused to examine a picture of my youngest son, Alexander, who had been immortalized at his sartorial worst. He wore two unmatched socks and a pair of untied sneakers. His hair was alarmingly tousled; his face was smudged. His shorts were droopy and wrinkled, and from them dangled not just one, but two torn pockets. And his T-shirt boldly displayed the bright-red signature of a recent spaghetti dinner.

  I looked at that picture and winced, and then I shuddered, and then I sighed and then—all of a sudden—I started to laugh. “Neatness,” I observed to myself, quoting a line from this oh-so-helpful collection, “was not one of the things he aimed at in life.” Once again I had discovered, in a children’s book, exactly what I needed.

  I have been, all my life, a passionate lover of children’s books—as a little girl; as a more-or-less adult woman; as a mother and grandmother; as an unpublished and, eventually (after eternities of rejection), published writer; and as a children’s book editor. In my editing days—and perhaps it’s still true, though I hope not—the children’s book department was the patronized kid sister of the far more important, and self-important, adult book department, where, it was deemed, the serious action took place. I didn’t—and don’t—accept that point of view.

  For I’ve always believed that, at their best, the language and the art of books for children are as good as it gets. At their best, the subjects treated in these books include almost all of our central human concerns. At their best, children’s books offer insights we’ll want to remember and ponder and savor and learn from and revel in. But you don’t have to take my word for it; between the covers of this charming book are some of the countless treasures that writings for children offer to both kids and adults.

  You will surely find words that speak to your condition. You may choose, for instance, to contemplate the solemnity of “Every passage has its price” or to let yourself be tickled by the deadpan humor of “It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.” You may nod your head in agreement with the indisputable truth that “One doesn’t contradict a hungry tiger,” or with the quiet sagacity of “Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.” You may, when your husband is driving a tad too fast on the superhighway, observe between clenched teeth that “It often takes more courage to be a passenger than a driver.” Or you may, like me, find words that will provide you with a cheering new perspective.

  Ranging from the highly poetic to the matter of fact, What the Dormouse Said tells us to choose freedom over safety, to get up when we’re knocked down, to remember to take delight where we find it, to recognize what we can and cannot control, to treat people carefully, to ask the right questions, to listen more than we talk, and to understand that “Things are not untrue just because they never happened.”

  It tells us, too, that growing old has value because “to stay young always is also not to change.” But at the same time it reminds us that we should never grow so old, or change so much, that we cannot find room in our hearts for the wisdom of children’s books.

  What I Learned from Children’s Books

  I didn’t come to children’s books in the usual way, out of my own childhood love of reading. My mother, an avid reader and writer, surprisingly enough never introduced me to the children’s classics. Either she wasn’t familiar with many of them (her own parents were not formally educated) or, more likely, she thought I could start right in on Proust.

  And so it was not until I had my son that I became interested in books for children—and then, out of self-preservation, in great books for children. When my son was very young, I would go to the library and take out lots of books for him, indiscriminately. He would then ask me to read one of these books over and over again, as children do (please Mom, just one more time!), and it quickly became a dreaded ordeal if I did not like the book. Yet there were certain books that I was able to enjoy reading again and again. Goodnight Moon was poetry to me, and each time I read it I took away something new. Where the Wild Things Are was a fable filled with wonderful language—I didn’t even notice the pictures.

  At first I only read these stories with my son, naturally. I had my own grown-up novels stacked on my night table. Then I noticed that long after his bedtime, I was still pouring over his books. As Power Rangers and Nintendo lured him out of my lap, I was back at the children’s section of the library—this time for me!

  Here’s when I started stashing away lines from children’s books that moved me, sticking Pippi profundities up on the refrigerator, offering advice from Freddy the Pig to friends who were down in the dumps. Books for children can be refreshingly entertaining and brimming with wisdom. I was charmed and moved by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey’s Miss Hickory, a doll with a twig and walnut body who suddenly realizes her limitations (“The fact that she had a nut for a head did make new ideas difficult for her mind to grasp.”), yet on she marches bravely. Or Margery Sharp’s Miss Bianca, another courageous lady whose motto hinted at a Utopian ideal I found instructive: “Let nibble who needs.”

  I discovered relevant lessons from 1863 in Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies, as well as from E. L. Konigsburg’s The View from Saturday, written over 130 years later. Here were quirky, inventive characters (Winnie-the-Pooh, “a Bear of Very Little Brain,” is like no one else in the world) and completely original voices (“Oh, the THINKS you can think up if only you try!” is unmistakably Dr. Seuss). Oz, Narnia, Neverland—I visited these worlds for the first time.

  I’m convinced that children’s book authors are often the neglected giants of literature. These beloved writers are rarely mentioned in traditional quotation books, yet references to their works are everywhere in our culture—in movies, advertising, music—and the best of them work on many levels. William Steig and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry may write for children, but adults will appreciate their subtle wit and worldly vision. The ability to get to the essence in just a few lines, as authors for young people with short attention spans must do, is the mark of a gifted writer for an audience of any age.

  Of course I could not read all the wonderful stories ever wri
tten for children, let alone include lines from all of them in this book. What the Dormouse Said is my admittedly idiosyncratic take on the children’s books I read. You won’t find all the classics here, and the works of many beloved authors—Noel Streatfeild, E. Nesbit, and Virginia Hamilton, to name a few—are not represented, because I could not always isolate single lines or their subject matter didn’t fit my organizational structure.

  I have tried to include only books that were originally written for children. But here again, I made my own rules. Aesop’s fables weren’t specifically intended for children, but you’ll see some of his lines. Quotes from books classified as young adult are sometimes here, but some of those classics just felt wrong in this collection. If some of your childhood favorites are missing, please forgive me. Whether What the Dormouse Said is pure nostalgia for you, whether the lessons inspire you, or whether you just happen to be a “quoteaphile,” I hope you’ll enjoy reading these lines as much as I enjoyed collecting them.

  As an editor of books for grown-ups, I have to admit that after a hectic day of reading and editing manuscripts in my office, it was a joy to settle into this project at night. Like spending time with children, these quotes lifted me out of my weary adult world clogged with all of those silly grown-up concerns. They served as reminders of what’s really important and how we—children and adults—are connected. For deep down, aren’t we all looking for ways to deal with the dark? Aren’t we all afraid our loved ones will be taken from us? Aren’t we all searching for a place to call home?

  —Amy Gash

  Faith and Courage

  “You’ve got to be able to make those daring leaps or you’re nowhere,” said Muskrat.

  —The Mouse and His Child, Russell Hoban, 1967

  She was not afraid of mice—

  she loved winter, snow, and ice.

  To the tiger in the zoo

  Madeline just said, “Pooh-pooh.”

  —Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939

  Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

  —The Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White, 1970

  The life of a Marionette has grown very tiresome to me and I want to become a boy, no matter howhard it is.

  —The Adventures of Pinocchio, C. Collodi, 1883

  Live courage, breathe courage and give courage.

  —Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, 1927

  I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

  —The Little Engine That Could, Watty Piper, 1930

  Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that he forgot to be frightened any more.

  —Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne, 1926

  The Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.

  “That is the way,” he said.

  “But there are no stairs.”

  “You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”

  —“The Golden Key,” Dealings with the Fairies, George MacDonald, 1867

  Mean old Mother Goose

  Lions on the loose

  They don’t frighten me at all

  I go boo

  Make them shoo.

  —Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, Maya Angelou, 1993

  —The View from Saturday, E. L. Konigsburg, 1996

  Are we not, all of us, wand’rers and strangers; and do we not, all of us, travel in danger or voyage uncharted seas?

  —A Gathering of Days, Joan W. Bios, 1979

  To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

  —Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson, 1980

  Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin . . . . What’s he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.

  —The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1939

  Why can’t my friends see, when I’m feeling so low,

  That the lower I get, then the higher I’ll go

  Later on. For before you can rise, you must drop;

  If you haven’t hit bottom, you can’t reach the top.

  —“I Feel Awful,” The Collected Poems of Freddy the Pig, Walter R. Brooks, 1953

  So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.

  —The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster, 1961

  Just to know you could. That was enough.

  —The Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks, 1980

  Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.

  —The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli, 1949

  Defiance

  “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

  —Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, 1963

  I hate being good.

  —Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers, 1934

  When Joy and Duty clash

  Let Duty go to smash.

  —Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1903

  It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

  —Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine, 1997

  Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

  —The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame, 1907

  This sharing business is for the birds.

  —Top Banana, Cari Best, 1997

  When I grow up I’m going to stay up all night long every night until I die.

  —Thimble Summer, Elizabeth Enright, 1938

  —Harry the Dirty Dog, Gene Zion, 1956

  Child! do not throw this book about;

  Refrain from the unholy pleasure

  Of cutting all the pictures out!

  —The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, Hilaire Belloc, 1896

  My father is always talking about how a dog can be very educational for a boy. This is one reason I got a cat.

  —It’s Like This, Cat, Emily Neville, 1963

  “I don’t mind him just thinking,” said Mrs. Brown, with a worried expression on her face. “It’s when he actually thinks of something that the trouble starts.”

  —A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond, 1958

  I’m allergic to spelling.

  —Phoebe and the Spelling Bee, Barney Saltzberg, 1996

  When I am grown to man’s estate

  I shall be very proud and great,

  And tell the other girls and boys

  Not to meddle with my toys.

  —“Looking Forward,” A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885

  Neatness was not one of the things he aimed at in life.

  —The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, 1960

  Without a doubt, there is such a thing as too much order.

  —“The Crocodile in the Bedroom,” Fables, Arnold Lobel, 1980

  For it isn’t normal to always be good—

  I don’t think you’d want to, and don’t think you should;

  Just as food tastes better with a shake of salt,

  A small bit of mischief is hardly a fault.

  And life would be boring, and life would be grim,

  If children were all goody-goody and prim.

  —Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls, William Cole, 1964

  Imagination and Adventure

  This is cause for celebration!

  A human with imagination!

  —Timothy Twinge, Florence Parry Heide and Roxanne Heide Pierce, 1993

  Think left and think right

  and think low and think high.

  Oh, the THINKS you can think up

  if only you try!

  —Oh, the THINKS You Can Think!, Dr. Seuss, 1975

  Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.

  —The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne,
1928

  I want to say that wonderful ideas can come from anywhere. Sometimes you make a mistake, or break something, or lose a hat, and the next thing you know, you get a great idea.

  —Max Makes a Million, Maira Kalman, 1990

  —Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, 1911

  When you’re making things time goes fast.

  —Scooter, Vera B. Williams, 1993

  When your head’s full of pictures, they have to come out.

  —Incredible Ned, Bill Maynard, 1997

  I’d rather paint than think. Painting is fun, but thinking hurts my brains.

  —Dominic, William Steig, 1972

  The whole world is full of things, and somebody has to look for them.

  —Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren, 1950

  Going to Aunt Mirandy’s is like going down cellar in the dark. There might be ogres and giants under the stairs,—but, as I tell Hannah, there might be elves and fairies and enchanted frogs!

  —Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1903

  Nothing cures homesickness quicker than an unexplored tower.

  —Beauty and the Beast, Nancy Willard, 1992

  —Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, 1911

  You must always take risks when experimenting.

  —Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson, 1948

  Little things have big results sometimes.

  —Willie Without, Margaret Moore, 1951

  Anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way. The next thing you know, you’re flying among the stars.