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1. "How good Meg is! Come, Amy, let's do as they do. I'll help you with the hard words, and they'll explain things if we don't understand," whispered Beth, very much impressed by the pretty books and her sisters’ example.
"I'm glad mine is blue," said Amy.
And then the rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
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2. Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made her cry,
“Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party tonight!”
Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he asked, “Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?”
“Nothing, precious,” she said; “they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.”
She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little Michael flung his arms round her. “Mother,” he cried, “I'm glad of you.” 3
• 3. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
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4. Finally he settled himself to read the final rule again. He had been trained, since earliest childhood, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech. Once, when he had been a Four, he had said, just prior to the midday meal at school, “I'm starving.”
Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision. He was not starving, it was pointed out.
He was hungry .
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5. “I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
6. “You may rrree-moof your vigs!” snarled The Grand High Witch. She had a peculiar way of speaking. There was some sort of a foreign accent there, something harsh and guttural, and she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter w. As well as that, she did something funny with the letter r. She would roll it round and round her mouth like a piece of hot pork-crackling before spitting it out.
TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING
7.“I’m going to count to three,” my mother told Fudge. “And then
I want you to tell me which shoes you want.
“Ready? One two three . . .”
Fudge sat up. “Like Pee-tah's!” he said.
I smiled. I guess the kid really looks up to me. He even wants to wear the same kind of shoes. But everybody knows you can't buy loafers for such a little guy.
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8. At school, Mrs. Dickens liked
Paul's picture of the sailboat better than my picture of the invisible castle.
At singing time she said I sang too loud. At counting time, she said I left out 16. Who needs 16? I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
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9. Sometimes they're hot little piggies, and sometimes they're cold little piggies. Sometimes they're clean little piggies, and sometimes they're dirty little piggies.
Sometimes they're good little piggies, but not at bedtime. That's when they skip down my tummy, dance on my toes, then run and hide.
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10. Freddy Jones throws a spitball. She curls her lip and breathes fire at him. Freddy's gone. There is just a little pile of ashes on his desk.
“Talk about bad breath,” giggles Eric Porter. She slithers over, unscrews his head, and puts it on the globe stand.
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11. Runny Babbit mot all guddy
Makin’ puddy mies,
His wamma mashed him with the clothes
And hung him out to dry.
Toe Jurtle said, “What are you doin’
So high agrove the bound?”
Runny Babbit sinned and graid,
“Oh, I'm just rangin’ hound.”
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12. Once upon a time there was a little old woman and a little old man who lived together in a little old house. They were lonely. So the little old lady decided to make a man out of stinky cheese. She gave him a piece of bacon for a mouth and two olives for eyes and put him in the oven to cook.
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13. A possum was ascooting’ and ascramblin’ and a-danglin’.
That possum that was knockin’ made a fool out of me!
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14.
“Oh no,” he moaned.
“Volcano erupts, go back three spaces.”
The room became warm and started to shake a little. Molten lava poured from the fireplace opening. It hit the water on the floor and the room filled with steam. Judy rolled the dice and moved ahead.
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15.
Poor Ida, never knowing, hugged the changeling and she murmured: “How I love you.”
The ice thing only dripped and stared, and Ida mad knew goblins had been there. “They stole my sister away!” she cried, “To be a nasty goblin's bride!”
Now Ida in a hurry snatched her Mama's yellow rain cloak, tucked her horn safe in a pocket, and made a serious mistake.
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16. The moon was out and we saw some sheep. We saw some sheep take a walk in their sleep. By the light of the moon, by the light of a star, they walked all night from near to far. I would never walk. I would take a car.
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17. That's enough, David!
Go to your room! Settle down! Stop that this instant! Put your toys away! Not in the house,
David! I said no, David!
Davey, come here. Yes,
David, I love you.
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18. Her sister-in-law, Mrs.
Rebeccah Puddle-duck, was perfectly willing to leave the hatching to some one else. “I have not the patience to sit on a nest for twenty-eight days; and no more have you, Jemima. You would let them go cold; you know you would!” “I wish to hatch them all by myself,” quacked Jemima Puddle-duck. She tried to hide her eggs; but they were always found and carried off.
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19. When you give her the bubbles, she’ll probably ask you for a toy. You’ll have to find your rubber duck. The duck will remind her of the farm where she was born. She might feel homesick and want to visit her family. She’ll want you to come too. She’ll look through your closet for a suitcase.
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20. One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see. After breakfast he put on his snowsuit and ran outside.
The snow was piled up very high along the street to make a path for walking.
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21. Ladies & Gentlemen! I see a song. I paint music. I hear color. I touch the rainbow, and the deep spring in the ground. My music talks. My colors dance. Come, listen, and let your imagination see your own song.
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22. It all began when Ms.
Fizzle showed our class a filmstrip about the human body. We knew trouble was about to start, because we knew Ms.
Fizzle was the strangest teacher in the school.
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23. In most ways, it was very much like any other tiny town. It had a Main Street lined with stores, houses with trees and gardens around them, a schoolhouse, about three hundred people, and some assorted cats and dogs. But there were no food stores in the town of Chewandswallow. They didn't need any. The sky supplied all the food they could possibly want. The only thing that was really different about
Chewandswallow was its weather. It came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every thing that everyone ate came from the sky.
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24. She ate my homework, bit Grandma, clawed the curtains, damaged the dishes, endangered the goldfish, flooded the bathroom, grappled with guests, hurled hair balls at our heads, irritated the baby, jumped on the bed, knocked over the lamp, loitered . . .
Nick Bruel
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25. After she finished she said,
“When you come home, first I will look to see if you are safe and sound, but then I will look to see if you still have your snow-white mittens.” So off
Nicki went. And it wasn't long until one of his new mittens dropped in the snow and was left behind.
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26. And Big Anthony sang,
Bubble bubble pasta pot
Boil me some pasta, nice and hot
I’m hungry and it’s time to sup
Boil enough pasta to fill me up.
And sure enough, the pot bubbled and boiled and began to fill up with pasta.
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27. There was a princess standing outside, but oh dear, she was in such a state, what with the rain and the terrible storm!
Water was dripping from her hair and her clothes, running in at the toes of her shoes and out at the heels again. But she said she was a real princess.
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28. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right
and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort.
Remember Cedric Diggory.
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ANSWERS!!!!
1. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
2. J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
3. Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
4. Lois Lowry, The Giver
5. Robert Frost, The Road Not
Taken
6. Roald Dahl, The Witches
7. Judy Blume, Tales of a Fourth
Grade Nothing
8. Judith Viorst, Alexander and the
Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very
Bad Day
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More answers!!!
9. Audrey Wood, Piggies
10. Mike Thaler, Teacher From the
Black Lagoon
11. Shel Silverstein, Runny Babbit
12. Jon Scieszka, Stinky Cheese Man
13. Nancy Van Laan, Possum Come
A-Knockin’ at My Door
14. Chris Van Allsburg, Jumanji
15. Maurice Sendak, Outside Over
There
16. Dr. Seuss, One Fish, Two Fish,
Red Fish, Blue Fish
17. David Shannon, No, David!
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Even more answers . . .
18. Beatrix Potter, The Tale of
Jemima Puddleduck
19. Laura Numeroff, If You Give a Pig a Pancake
20. Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day
21. Eric Carle, I See A Song
22. Joanna Cole, Magic School Bus
Inside the Human Body
23. Judi Barrett, Cloudy With a
Chance of Meatballs
24. Nick Bruel, Bad Kitty
25. Jan Brett, The Mitten
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This is the end
26. Tomie de Paola, Strega Nona
27. Hans Christian Anderson, The
Princess and the Pea
28. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
BONUS!!!! What book and author is this quote from?:
“The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another . . .”
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