Thanksgiving Quote

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

From The Pumpkin by John Greenleaf Whittier

Wishing you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving!

No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.

Charles Dickens

Our Mutual Friend

Lessons From a Bear of Very Little Brain

For as long as I can remember, I have loved Winnie-the-Pooh. Perhaps it's because when I was two, we were snowed in for a few days and the only movies we had were four, 30 minute episodes of that bear of very little brain. Whatever the reason, it is a love that I have never outgrown. I do have friends that laugh at the fact that this no-longer a teenager still has a room with Pooh curtains, a Pooh blanket and a bed covered in Pooh stuffed animals. But I am not ashamed. There is something so sweet and simple, yet so deep and moving in these humble stories of a stuffed bear and his friends living in the Hundred Acre Wood. And, what is more, I know that I am not alone. I think that too many times, we forget about the simple truths hidden in a children's book. Here is a great essay on the subject of Winnie-the-Pooh and children's literature. Maybe we should all take a moment and lay down our Shakespeare, our Dante and our Milton and instead trade it for the cleansing power of a simple children's story. All of us could use a day at Pooh Corner.

Der Bücherwurm

Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore?

~Henry Ward Beecher