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?

"Tell you all what," he said sleepily. "We're too utterly exhausted to talk much about it now, and anyway you're all making such a row that we don't sup'ose we'll ever be able to rest an' recover our strength... Anyway, we've thought of something jolly important we want for Christmas... Shall we tell you what it is?"
"All right, we will," came Mary's clear little voice. "We shall want a Christmas tree."
And from the hearth came the thud of Mackie's tail as he saluted the two voices he loved best.

Wings over Witchend by Malcolm Saville. Ds was crying when he made me reread those lines-earlier in the book Mackie is apparently dead.

"Over Cloudesly Castle the moon hung low. It shone through the open roof upon the backs of many horses, upon the soft short grass and the piles hay, upon the fallen stones of the great ruined walls and upon the men who were set to guard it. It shone upon a man who lay listening in a dried out ditch, knowing that his hours of freedom were as many as the hours of darkness, and upon the quiet cordon that ringed the Walland Marsh.
"Rising higher, it was the full bright heart of the night, and if old Jim Decks stirred restlessly as its light disturbed his sleeping, who was to know how many times the moon had called his ancestors to perils on the Marsh and on the water."

Cargo of Horses by Monica Edwards

Ok Kavvlar has just finished me off 😭

Came on to say The Giving Tree

And the boy loved the tree
And she loved a little boy
Very, very much
Even more than she loved herself

Reminds me of my lovely DS

My Love Will Always Find You. Nancy Tillman. I am incapable of reading this book without sobbing. Big fat choking sobs! It sums up how I feel about DD. My love is so high, so wide and so deep, it is always right with you, even when you're asleep.

It never gets lost, never fades, never ends…

if you’re working…

or playing…

or sitting with friends.

You can dance ’til you’re dizzy…

paint ’til you’re blue…

There’s no place, not one,
that my love can’t find you.
Son.

Sob.
Damn autocorrect!

YY to the bit in No Matter What that Misti quoted

and so many from Winnie the Pooh

'If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you'

'I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time'

'We'll be friends until forever, just you wait and see'

Mine have already been mentioned, but definitely oh the places you'll go and the paper dolls where she has a kind grandma in her memories chokes me, and the whole of little monster, especially the line "my beautiful, wonderful, glorious child, you light up my world"

'Down the trail, out of the darkness of the bush and into the light of the slanting bars of sunlight, joggling along with his peculiar nautical roll, came--Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune.

Boroughcastle Brigadier's ragged banner of a tail streamed out behind him, his battle-scarred ears were upright and forward, and his noble pink and black nose twitched, straining to encompass all that his short peering gaze was denied. Thin and tired, hopeful, happyand hungry, his remarkable face alight with expectationthe old warrior was returning from the wilderness. Bodger, beautiful for once, was coming as fast as he could.'

The end of The Incredible Journey about 2 dogs and a cat who find their way home is a total sobfest for me.

"Butterflies live only short lives. They flower and flutter for just a few glorious weeks and then they die. To see them you have to be in the right place at the right time and that's how it was with the butterfly lion".

From the Butterfly Lion, by Michael Morpurgo. I read it to my cousin when his big sister was in hospital we both burst into tears at that bit.

The bit at the end of Anne of Green Gables: Matthew saying that it wasn't a boy who won the Avery scholarship. "It was a girl. My girl. My girl that I'm proud of."

"But when the day ends and the sun starts to fall,
I do what I do best of all,
I find somewhere soft, somewhere cosy and small,
And there's where I like to curl up in a ball"

Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball by Charles Fuge & Vicki Churchill.

What a gorgeous thread. Will definitely check out some of these books; the velveteen rabbit sounds ideal for DD2! Paper dolls is one of my very faves.

I am also just planning my leavers' assembly, some of these will help, so thanks!

This thread is beautiful. Winnie the Pooh always makes me cry.

Anything AA Milnes wrote makes me sob. He is so talented and has such a way with words.

"Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved."

"When The World Was Waiting For You" can't read it to my babies without sobbing, It's adorable ❤

Lots already mentioned here, Charlotte's Web, Railway Children, Paper Dolls, Dogger.

Also “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Also on a less literary note, Charlie and Lola: I am too extremely small for school:
"She wasn't all alone all by herself, she was hopping off home with somebody else."

And the end of the Red Woollen Blanket: "Sometime during her first day at school she lost the last threads of her blanket.... it could've been anywhere, and she hardly even missed it."

My kids all think I'm mad when I cry at books but they are used to it now, and they just take over reading when I start welling up and can't read any more.

Just yesterday I was discussing 'Peepo" with my 18 year old!

'He see the landing mirror with its rainbow rim,
and a mother, with a baby, just like him'

Can't even say it without crying.

And the Selfish Giant -

'And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, 'You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise'. I wouldn't be able to read the end of this book for crying!

And Heaven by Nicholas Allan. Where Dill the dog looks down from his cloud at his replacement and says, 'I bet he thinks he's in heaven already'. So beautiful.

I love these lines from Polar Express -

At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.

It makes me howl every Christmas. The thought that one DC does not believe in Santa now and soon the other one won't - wah!

A book called The Toymaker.
She made it with love, for she had not forgotten.
Beautiful ...

This one ...

Lots of lovely ones here! I wanted to add "Keep Love in Your Heart Little One" by Giles Andreae which I cannot read without welling up. The whole book is gorgeous and written in verse - a parent talking to their sleeping child. Here's a taster...

"So when you get knocked down, my sweetheart, look up at the sky without fear, for sometimes we need to be flat on our backs before starlight begins to appear."

and...

"It's the only sure way to be happy, The only sure way to be free. Believe in yourself and believe in your dreams, And you'll be what you dream you can be."

Beautifully illustrated by Clara Vulliamay too.

Oh Elephants! How could I have forgotten the Polar Express! I made all my family tree decorations of the bell with that quote, I've even got a tattoo of the bell. That quote sums up Christmas to me, I just adore it!

What a lovely thread! This, from Teddy Robinson Meets Father Christmas, always gets me.
"Then the clock in the church tower struck twelve, slowly and clearly. Teddy Robinson counted one, two, three, four, three times over; and then he held his breath and listened. Very faint and far away he thought he could hear the sound of tiny jingling bells. At the same moment he noticed the stars seemed to be twinkling much more brightly, and that some of them were spinning around and shooting across the sky, just as if something very exciting was happening up there. The noise of the jingling bells grew louder, as if it was coming nearer, until soon all the air seemed to be filled with the sound." Magical - gives me goosebumps even now!

It's been mentioned a couple of times but I love you little monster is a favourite. I choke up at
"For when you get knocked down my sweetheart, look up at the sky without fear. For sometimes we need to be flat on our backs, before starlight begins to appear."

It's such a special book - it captures perfectly the adult/child relationship for me and settles into a good night's sleep

I was just coming on to say the last lines of The Toymaker.

I have a recording of my father reading it. He wobbles on that bit too.

Someone mentioned The Children of Green Knowe. There is another lovely bit where Tolly and his grandmother in the ancient house listen to a mother from long ago singing a lullaby to her baby....It ends as Tolly sings quietly to himself, and " four hundred years ago, a baby fell asleep. "

One quote I always remember, from a children's book, getting the tears going, is this line from goodnight mr tom.