Bod could not imagine hugging Silas, so he held out his hand and Silas bent over and gently shook it, engulfing Bod’s small, grubby hand with his huge, pale one. Then, lifting his black leather bag as if it were weightless, he walked down the path and out of the graveyard.
(The Graveyard Book)
For a week or so the wind played with the island, patting it, stroking it, humming to itself among the bare branches. Then there was a lull, a few days' strange calm; suddenly, when you least expected it, the wind would be back. But it was a changed wind, a mad, hooting, bellowing wind that leaped down on the island and tried to blow it into the sea.
(My Family and Other Animals)
A pretty black lady walked into the room then, and at first, Gerald thought it was Mama. But Mama never, never wore white, and this lady was smiling and Gerald knew that when Mama came to get him, she’d be screamin’ and yellin’ and cussin’.
(Forged by Fire)
It was always a strange thing for my siblings and me. As our mum was raised by a white father, there was no cultural knowledge for her – or us – to inherit. Despite being raised by her birth father in a home filled with complete and utter love, unconditional security and protection, the one thing he couldn’t give my mum was the knowledge of who she was as an Aboriginal woman.
(Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia)
"Didn't you notice?" she asked. "None of them had a bathroom."
Mr. Beeler stared at Mother with bulging eyes.
"But Madame," he wailed in genuine anguish, "what for you want a bathroom? Have you not got the sea?"
(My Family and Other Animals)
"He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know."
(The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
Around the age of twelve, I entered a growth spurt, and suddenly this blond-haired, pale-skinned, slightly gawky child began looking deformed. My spine bent and curved under the pressure. It pressed outwards and tilted me to the side. Unbeknown to me, my mother had been watching for years, wondering, quietly worried that I might have inherited something that would catapult me towards – what, exactly? A stareable body? Disability? My father? My spine was a kind of question mark.
(Growing Up with Disability in Australia)
MODELLING COULD TRANSFORM ME. And I’d no longer be Harriet Manners – hated, ignored, humiliated. I’d be… someone else. Someone different. Someone cool. Because if I don’t do something now, I’m going to be me forever. I’m going to be a geek forever. And people are just going to keep hating me and laughing at me and putting their hands up. Forever. And things will never, ever change.
Unless I do.
(Geek Girl)
The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours.
(The House on Mango Street)
Every noise she made echoed, in that long room. She turned all of the overhead lights on, even the light on the whiteboard, just to make the place less scary. The room began to feel cold. She wished she could turn up the heat. She walked over to one of the large metal radiators and touched it. It was burning hot. But still, she was shivering.
The room was empty and unsettling in its emptiness, and Mo felt as if she were not alone, as if she was being watched.
(The Graveyard Book)
"Miss Lupescu?"
The great dog-like head lowered towards him, and for one mad, fear-filled moment, he thought she was going to take a bite out of him, but her tongue licked the side of his face, affectionately.
"You hurt your ankle?"
"Yes. I can’t stand on it."
(The Graveyard Book)
Someday you will beg for the honor of licking my feet. You will get down on your stupid, worthless knees and beg, "Please, sir! Please! Let me lick the diseased dog dung from between your toes." (I will be standing barefoot in the dung of diseased dogs—just to make it grosser for you.) And if I am in a good mood and am not too disgusted by your stupid, wormy tears or your stupid, scrunched-up face, I will allow you the signal honor of licking my feet clean. Even though you don’t deserve it.
But that’s all in the future. At the moment, I’m in the seventh grade.
(I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President)
"Four legs good, two legs bad."
(Animal Farm)
"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."
"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee."
(Peter Pan)
Both boys were looking very pale and miserable, now. Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed. Both fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and main. Joe said feebly:
"I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it."
Tom said, with quivering lip and halting utterance:
"I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. No, you needn't come Huck—we can find it."
So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome, and went to find his comrades.
(The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
