Beautiful lines from children's books

Can't believe this got to page 9 without anyone mentioning Owl Babies!

That, the line from Dogger and Giraffes can't Dance are sure-fire lumps-in-throat for me.

We have a book called 'I took the moon for a walk' too. I can well up reading pretty much any page.

This is such a lovely thread...especially for a budding children's author. Would love to one of my lines up here one day

Some of my favourites have already been mentioned like the Paper Dolls, Owl Babies and Oh, the places you'll go (I read this to my DD the day before she started school...what an emotional wreck I was by the time I'did finished it!)

Another favourite line is from 'Harris finds his feet'...utterly beautiful book about the special relationship between a young hare and his grandad. There is a bit that makes my voice wobble every time...

"Grandad!" Harris cried, hopping back. "Why aren't you running with me?"

"Because I'm growing old, little Harris. It's your turn to run. The world is yours to explore."

Gets me every time!

I must be missing something with the snail and the whale, will re- read it with fresh eyes!
Paper Dolls gets me every time, as does Giraffes don't dance:
Sometimes when you're different you just be a different song... everything makes music if you really want it to' or something like that. Gets me every time.

Oh I'd forgotten the Shantih stories! There was another Patricia Leitch book called 'A Dream of Fair Horses that always made me cry'....

Oh and Monkey Puzzle
'Come little monkey, come come come. It's time I took you home to mum.' I think it's a lovely book, especially the discussions about not everyone looking like their mum.

I always leave out Paper Dolls for my mum to read to DD. Beautiful for mum's and daughters.

I haven't read the whole thread but I always tear up at On The Night You Were Born:

On the night you were born, the moon smiled with such wonder that the stars peeked in to see you and the night wind whispered, "Life will never be the same.""

From Charlotte's Web: "No one was with her when she died."

I defy anyone to read that line without a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye.

Also a beautiful passage from Understood Betsy: "She had said her 'Now I lay me' every night since she could remember, but she had never prayed till she lay there with her face on the rock, saying over and over, 'Oh, God, please, please, please make Mr. Pond adopt 'Lias.'"

This passage is about an abused child whom Betsy and her friends and family do their best to help, in the hope that he will be adopted by a kind couple they know. There are numerous other parts of the book that are equally wonderful.

I just read the OP and was just about to quote the paper dolls line(s) until I realised loads of you had beaten me to it.

(I just love mumsnet for this - that moment when you realise that no, it's not 'just you' that thinks/feels something...)

I have read tbe whole thread and I'm properly crying so much my nose has swelled up.

I don't even have kids.

I love I Capture the Castle! That first line is so cosy. I could read it again and again. I also love Goodnight Mr Tom but it breaks my heart every time.

I have always been really moved by Why the Owl Behaves as it Does by Ted Hughes.

The birds, tricked into a life of fear and darkness by the mean owl, become so sad that they decide to die, rather than carry on with their miserable existence. They go out to face the darkness, believing it will kill
them. Instead the sun rises and they are still alive and can escape. Rumour has it, he wrote it for his children to help explain Sylvia Plath's depression and suicide. If you read it with that in mind, it is even more poignant. I only have a hard copy, so here are some of the saddest lines.

"Let us die bravely, and at once" said Robin.

Softly, the birds began to sing their old songs.

Oh, they were so tired of their lives. To die like this was better than to live as they had been doing.

Loving this thread.
That Owl baby line is just gorgeous.

I love peepo too
When older I loved the opening from I Capture the Castle
"I'm sat writing this in the kitchen sink" always makes me smile

The book is in my daughters' room so excuse if I've misquoted, but...

"Close your eyes and I will keep,
A watch beside you while you sleep."

from Rhymes for Annie Rose by Shirley Hughes. It's too much.

Oh yes Cuckoo that line in Owl Babies gets me too.

YY to the line in WTWTA with where someone loves him best of all
My DS is 17yo, and called Max.
I always quote bits from "Wild Things" at him

Another one that makes me is The Walrus and The Carpenter where they lure the unsuspecting oysters along the beach and eat them all they'd eaten ever one

My favourites are already in the thread (Anne of Green Gables mostly), but I wanted to add:

Owl Babies: And she came, soft and silent she swooped through the trees

When they are waiting for the mummy owl to come back to the nest

I think it's because of how I feel about going to work and wanting my girls not to miss me

It's the pictures and the words.

The paper dolls one as well! I always cry when I read it!

Wind in the Willows, when Mole smells home:

Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked it as it came. 'I know it's a— shabby, dingy little place,' he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: 'not like— your cosy quarters— or Toad's beautiful hall— or Badger's great house— but it was my own little home— and I was fond of it— and I went away and forgot all about it— and then I smelt it suddenly— on the road, when I called and you wouldn't listen, Rat— and everything came back to me with a rush— and I wanted it!— O dear, O dear!— and when you wouldn't turn back, Ratty— and I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the time— I thought my heart would break.— We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty— only one look— it was close by— but you wouldn't turn back, Ratty, you wouldn't turn back! O dear, O dear!'

Nancy Tillman- the crown on your head.
The whole story is beautiful but I especially love the first bit. I read this story lots to ds when he was seriously ill and it made me well up (and still does). The words ring so true to my boy.

On the day that we met you and I put you to bed, I noticed a crown on the top of your head.
It was made up of sparkling glimmering things like moonlight and fireflies, and dragon wings.
As the days came and went, It was faithful and true...
and It grew right along with the rest of you.
I always knew just what your crown meant.
It said that you were MAGNIFICENT.

"But I gave Buns to the Elephant when I went down to the zoo" could be an interesting innuendo.

There was also the Changing Of The Guard when Christopher Robin went down on Alice. But anyway, I've hijacked this thread enough. I'll see myself out .

I'm obviously not discerning enough.

I do know the whole of James James etc off by heart as I learnt it in junior 4. I quote it at the children when they're going into town. They love me really.

Witchend. It was strictly ' under the counter, for discerning adults and students of filthy poetry'.

Now We Have SexThat's a new one on me... I've only got "Now we are Six" A bit risqué for AA Milne.