By Jan Pease
Lately
I’ve been a bit annoying when friends declare how stressed they are feeling. I open my
arms wide and sing, “Let it go! Let it go!”
This is from the movie “Frozen,” words and music by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and
Robert Lopez. It is so simple and yet
profound. Of course, turnabout is fair play, and a
family member reminded me this week to “Let it Go!” when I was harboring some
hurt feelings. It’s good advice.
This
made me think about other profound thoughts found in children’s
literature. Knowing this was probably
not an original idea, I poked around on the Internet and found other lists of
quotations from children’s books. It
would seem that many of us have read the same books.
Beginner’s Book Club members loved “The BFG.” The Big
Friendly Giant says, “The matter with human beans, is that they is absolutely
refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in
front of their own schnozzles.” Roald
Dahl, of course, wrote “The BFG” and one could write a book just filled with
quotable quotes from his writing.
Christopher
Robin says to Winnie the Pooh, “Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than
you think.” This is usually attributed
to A.A. Milne, but seems to actually be a quotation from the 1997 Disney movie “Pooh’s Grand Adventure: the Search for
Christopher Robin.” It is still wonderful
advice, especially for someone who is starting a new adventure.
In
“The Cat in the Hat,” Dr. Seuss tells us, “Be who you are and say what you
feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't
mind.” Another entire book could be written full of
the wisdom of Dr. Seuss.
This
one reminds me of my husband, Dave. In “Charlotte's Web,” by E.B. White, Charlotte the spider tells
Wilbur, who is very worried, “Never hurry and never worry!” Dave never worries, and he is never in a
hurry.
Madeleine L’Engle wrote “A Wrinkle in Time,”
again, another writer with deep ideas hidden in children’s stories. She said, “Believing takes practice.” How do you practice belief? 
There
is a wonderful book by Giles Andrea, “Giraffes Can’t Dance.” Gerald the Giraffe is tall and slim, with
long skinny legs, and he wants desperately to dance. Mr. Andrea says, “We can all dance when we find music that we love.” I firmly believe that he has something there.
And
finally, “Remember, broken crayons still color.” This
saying turns up here and there, but I saw it in action when a tiny child held
up a crayon and said, “Broken.” I
answered, “but it still colors.” A sad face broke into a smile.
That
old crayon can also be made new. One of
my projects during our break from story hour is to melt our old, broken crayons
into new shiny ones. We’ll see if this
works when Story Hour begins again January 9th at 10, when the
Reading Therapy dogs will come for a visit at Second Saturday Story Time. It’s almost time for a new year! I can’t wait to see what it will bring.
