Beautiful lines from children's books

[NettJarrp]

Just came across this line in DD's current favourite bedtime story:
"Then Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh walked hand in hand down the forest path and they said goodbye. So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."
I'm in tears. It's times like this that I wish that I could share these feelings with DD's father (I'm widowed - not a thread about that though).

What lines in children's stories pull at your heart strings?

Ready love you forever is the whole gamut of human emotion.

Parenthood generally - summed up

From Dogger - "And then Bella did a very kind thing." I always cry.

Also the Big Big Sea.

Ones that get me every time are- "and then Bella did a very kind thing" from Dogger and the start of Goodbye Mog - "Mog was tired.." I bought that for the DC recently, having avoided it, when our old dog died. They were fine but I sobbed

I can't remember the exact bits but lots of Kensuke's Kingdom is beautiful too- when Michael leaves the island and the bit about his mum refusing to give up on him.

Cross post Girl

Once there were giants and The Big Big Sea.

Both get me everytime. We were given the big big sea by one of my friends. Read it to DD one evening and really found it hard to hold back the waterworks. Told friend she ought to have warned me it was such a tear jerker "remember this time it's the way life should be"

"Then we had a baby girl, and things changed. .. there are giants in our house again! " from Once There Were Giants.

Also, the Starting School book always makes me cry. "Then Gavin and Errol and Sophie and Sushma and David and Kate and Robert and Alison go home, and the holiday begins." Really sums up the double life I felt I had as a kid and the duality of my eldest's life now...
the hours away from me when she's so grown up, the huge variety in experiences and people she knows now and the life away from us compared to the safe, small world of "home". Gosh I miss her when she's at school.

Another who came on to say the ending of no matter what by Debi Gliori.
Read it to my dts at bedtime tonight (again!) as they've been horrid little sods all day, and it always makes me feel like we've made amends. They just think it's hilarious!

These are emotional!

I always used to choke back the tears at "Peepo".

Here's a little baby
One two three
On his way to bed
What did he see?
He sees the landing mirror
With its rainbow rim
And a mummy and a baby
Just like him
He sees the bedroom door
His cot all ready
Daddy kissing him "goodnight",
His ball, and his teddy.

Sob! I don't know why it gets me so much. It really takes me back to very very early memories of my own, how vividly I can remember all the little details of the house where I lived when small. And it makes me remember bedtime with my mum and dad, stories, songs and cuddles.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that lost world!

'What became of the sandwich?
Well, in Itching Down they like to tell
How the birds flew off with it in their beaks
And had a feast for a hundred weeks.'

(The end of 'The Giant Jam Sandwich'). Not even sad but still gives me goosebumps like Smiths' lyrics and makes me a bit tearful for no good reason. DCs could never understand why I wobbled over it every time.

"When she cuddles him close, he can hear her heart,
And a soft, sudden whoosh as the night train starts,
It pulls out of the station and into the dark,
Filling the world with billows of steam,
Soft see-through clouds that turn into dreams."

From William and the Night Train by Mij Kelly and Alison Jay

I love it, it gets me every time. DS1 has insisted on it at bedtime for three solid years now.

The bit in Moominsummer Madness where Moomintroll has been changed by the Hobgoblin's hat and his friends don't recognise him and are being mean to him. Then Moominmamma comes and looks deep into his frightened eyes and says something like, "Yes you are my Moomintroll and I will always know you".

I bloody love Moominmamma; she is my role model of fantastic mothering.

"So here is a very fine crown,
To go with the sandals and gown,
Of the kindest giant in town."

Lots and lots of bits from A Little Princess, but i'll go for:

'She almost staggered to the books and opened the one which lay upon the top. Something was written on the flyleaf—just a few words, and they were these:

"To the little girl in the attic. From a friend."

When she saw that—wasn't it a strange thing for her to do—she put her face down upon the page and burst into tears.

"I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend."'

I was at a wedding where the first reading was from Winnie The Pooh.

Today is Mother's Day in Italy. This morning DS age 5 woke me with these words which he had memorised at school. There were tears!!
La mamma
Due braccia che m'abbracciano,
due labbra che mi baciano,
due occhi che mi guardano,
e mani che accarezzano
e sento un buon odore
e sento un bel sapore:
la mamma e’ questo per me
e molto altro ancora:
la mamma e’ una dolcissima signora.

Two arms that cuddle me,
Two lips that kiss me,
Two eyes that watch me,
And hands that caress me,
And I smell a lovely scent,
And I taste a lovely taste,
Mummy is this to me,
And much more as well
Mummy is the very sweetest woman.

Oh dear. Now I'm weeping too much to go to bed.

The end of Charlotte's Web.
It goes something like...Wilbur loved Charlotte's children and grandchildren dearly but they couldn't take her place. She was in a class of her own...
"It's not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

All of 'not now, Bernard

Poor Bernard

So much of the Little Prince. But especially this:
One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"
And a little later you added:
"You know-- one loves the sunset, when one is so sad..."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"
But the little prince made no reply.

*@coolcarrie
*
I once read the nightingale and the Rose to my 6th formers. I couldn't stop crying as I read; they looked everywhere, uncomfortably. This was the bit that set me off:

So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.
And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart.
But the Nightingale's voice grew fainter, and her little wings began to beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, and she felt something choking her in her throat.

The end of The Sheep Pig when Babe aces the sheepdog trial competition and Farmer Hoggett says 'That'll do, Pig. That'll do.'

Have read that book with ds1 and DS2 and got equally choked at the ending each time. There's just something about it that gets me.

Oh God, why did I open this thread...

'On the night you were born' by Nancy Tillman:

"For never before in story or rhyme
(not even once upon a time)
Has the world ever known a you, my friend,
And it never will, not ever again…
Heaven blew every trumpet
And played every horn
On the wonderful, marvelous
Night you were born."