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?

Gosh i just re read my post and I sound like I'm some sort of Miss Honey character - it's not usually as calm and lovely as that! 😂

Oh god! Reading this thread while nursing my three month old and with all the melancholy (in a good way) writing and the hormones I'm in a flood of tears! Lucky no one's home to see me.

I also love On the Night You Were Born and tear up most nights I read it, it was the first book we were given for a newly born DD1,

I also love (and tear up to) Kissed by the Moon (no particular line, Judy the whole thing), and Baby Bedtime:

"I could sing you all the songs that my mother sang to me,
I could listen to your breathing,
I could pat your precious head,
I could hold your hand in my hand ask sit beside your bed,
But there comes a time for sleeping and our sleepy time is now,
So fall asleep my angel,
With a kiss upon your brow"

^^ just the whole thing - not Judy

And

As I sit beside your bed (obviously)

Bloody tears blinding me

I once read on here that someone had had 'Now We Are Six' as the reading at their 6yo's funeral. I can't even think of the poem without crying now.

But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

That has unravelled me Greenhair. Officially a heap of emotion.

Gosh - bumping here as I'm at work with tears welling up.

Thank you OP for starting such a beautiful thread and much love to you.

Who needs newspapers eh with such wonderful Mumsnetters.

The Velveteen Rabbit. My mum read this at our wedding:

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Nancy Tillman books get me everytime. "Heaven blew every trumpet and played every horn, on the wonderful, marvellous night you were born"

That lovely bit in Little Women, where Laurie's grandfather sends Beth a piano.She overcomes her shyness to go next door and thank him, and as she is going back, he says softly "I had a little girl once, with eyes like those."

A newer one but it catches me every time.

Pandora by Victoria Turnbull

Pandora was alone again. She thought her heart would break.

One morning she awoke to the warmth of the sun...and birdsong. In a land of living things.

The last line of Once There Were Giants:

'There are giants in the house again... and one of the giants is me'

I've loved this thread!

I last heard that very quote from the Velveteen Rabbit at my friends' baby's funeral. DS was a month old, and I have never been able to even look at that book since. My DC (8 and 5 now) will grow up with the VR, because of such strong associations with that passage.

Bumping again - for some reason this doesn't stay in my 'I'm on' section on my Mumsnet app.

I want to write down all these titles and buy them for my DCs.

Best thread!

I haven't read the full thread (too emotional!) so I don't know if anyone has mentioned "Daddy, my Daddy!" at the end of The Railway Children (probably!) but I can't read that without crying. Doesn't help that my own lovely Dad is no longer with us.

But actually I like the very last paragraph of the story. The dad goes into the house to see his family after years of being separated. Instead of describing the reunion, the author speaks directly to the reader and says (I'm paraphrasing)
"I think we will leave them now, and retreat, down the garden path, past the roses and the hyacinth, along the path, down the hill..." etc, and gives you a real sense of walking away from this lovely family you've got to know. I read this story for the first time aged 9 and I clearly remember thinking how clever an ending it was, and how amazing books could be. I went on to get an English degree, so thank you to whoever bought me that book for my 9th birthday!

I cry reading the Snail and the Wale too.

Also...

"There will be a lot of people in your life who will tell you to "grow up" or insist that you stop believing in magic.

Do NOT listen to these people. There IS magic in this world.

And me and the elves and some fine flying reindeer will prove it to you, and all the children of the world, every Christmas morning, when you find a stocking full of presents."

A Boy Called Christmas - Matt Haig

The bit in The Children of Green Knowe where Mrs Oldknow explains to Tolly what happened to the children:

"Are they all dead?" he said at last?
"They all died together in the Great Plague. The farm bailiff, Boggis, had been to London on business and he brought the infection back with him. Toby and Alexander and Linnet and their mother all died in one day, in a few hours. And little Boggis too. Only the poor old grandmother was left, too unhappy to cry".

Oh, it gets me every time. I can just picture the grandmother, frozen with grief.

"Horse. Dear, dear horse. I love you best of all." Jinny stood for a moment watching Shantih roll; then she walked slowly back to the house. Maybe happiness was an immortal thing, perhaps you shouldn't run to it. "Walk slowly, magician." As she walked, happiness brimmed over in Jinny. "Thank you, thank you!" she shouted aloud, taking great leaps into the air, hair flying. For Kelly was safe and Ken had come home."

Patricia Leitch, Gallop to the Hills (1979) - one of the beautiful, magical Jinny at Finmory series about a girl and her horse in rural Scotland.

This from either The Magician's nephew or The Lion the Witch and the wardrobe. I read them last summer to my daughter and this struck a chord as I took a pic at the time. It was a tough time in our lives.

' A little boy and his bear will always be playing...' gets me every time! Also the end of Tom's Midnight Garden. Another one is the end of Watership Down where Elahrairah comes for Hazel ' It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch...'. So many kindred spirits on this thread.

Oh, spider! I loved Jinny so much.

nothing to add, but thank you to OP and everybody who has left something. Such a nice evening read :)

grumblebumble I love that book too I Love you Little Monster and bought it when ds and I weren't getting on, so this line made me cry: "there's so much to do in thr day, that its hard to sitdown and to make ebough time to say all of the things i should say. but somehow now that you're sleeping, and everything's quiet and calm, the words seem to be much more easy to say. And big laid a soft hand on my arm"

DC just look at me strangely when I get emotional whilst reading a book!

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something.
That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honour trampled in the sewer of baser minds.
There is only one thing for it then - learn....Look what a lot of things there are to learn." - TH White. The Once and Future King

Misty I must have read it a dozen times before I managed to get through it without filling up. Different parts gets me on different days depending on what is happening - I have a very precious Little Monster who we waited a very long time to meet.

This poem below by AA Milne always makes me cry, particularly the last 2 verses

Spring Morning

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"

Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.