Children need the lie to be brave enough to sleep in their beds

There's the parent you want and the parent you have.

And oh, how she pitched herself into things. She would draw pictures all day long for weeks on end, then throw out the pencils and never draw another thing. Then it was embroidery with her, she had to...

He screams like a girl if he has to watch a horror movie. Caleb Hey! Nick Well, you do. I Tried to watch Child's Play and you ran off to hide during the opening credits. And then he had to go sleep...

She would sit with picture books in her little lap before she even knew how to read, studying the writing as though all the mystery and wonder of the world were contained in the strange,...

A happy childhood can fortify one against the ravages of life, and part of that happiness is found in books, which become our constant companions for the rest of our lives.

It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.

It's a family joke that when I was a tiny child I turned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, Momma, do we believe in winter?

To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that...

At first all she could see was a tiny shadowy shape in the corner by the door. She tiptoed out of bed to have a closer look. It was little and dirty and a tad smelly. The dusty floorboards creaked a...

The boy heaved a sigh. I would ask to go with you, he said, but I have to finish my lessons. I so look forward to the day when I know everything. Then I won't have to read any more books or do any...

Where's Mom? I can't wait to tell her all about this. She's going to be late. An appointment, I think. Again? Jessica pouted. That makes three nights in a row! I thought mothers were supposed to stay...

If you've not been loved as a child, you don't know how to love a child.

Children's voices - even those who couldn't carry the tune - are always appealing.

I have brought you half of my pancakes,

I remember my own childhood vividly . . . I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them.

When you're a child you never figure a grownup is going to be jealous of. It's the grownups who seem to have everything. Children give adults far too much credit.

Yes, I regret you because you are a true child, Scarlett. A child who cries because she can't touch the moon. And what would she do with it if she finally reached it?

The houses looked like something a child might draw, a row of shaky squares with triangles on top. Add a door, add two windows. Think of putting a tree in the front yard, and then decide against it...

In the middle of the night, when Laila woke up thirsty, she found their hands still clamped together, in the white-knuckle, anxious way of children clutching balloon strings.

Trick, yes, trick.' The boys were catching fire with the idea. It made all the good glue go out of their joints and put a little dust of sin in their blood. They felt it stir around until it pumped on...

I was not happy as a child, although from time to time I was content. I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

Mizzy has, again, wandered into the garden, like a child who feels no fealty to adult conversation.

It takes so little to make a child happy that it is a pity, in a world so full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

I was a structuralist at the age of seven, which is about the right age for it.

In recalling my childhood I like to picture myself as a beehive to which various simple obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life, generously enriching my character with...

Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks, chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth.

Mandy smiled cheerfully at an overweight kid in a gold sweater and pink skirt who was chasing her little brother around along the boardwalk. When she was that age, on sunny days she'd be out on the...

A child is asleep. Her private life unwinds inside skin and skull; only as she sheds childhood, first one decade and then another, can she locate the actual, historical stream, see the setting of her...

Boys my age with whom, in spite of everything, I was obliged to mix occasionally, mocked me.