Gorgeous Words From Margaret Mahy: Celebrating International Children’s Book Day (For Yesterday)
Yesterday, April 2, was International Children’s Book Day, which is also the birthday of renowned children’s writer, Hans Christian Anderson.
The purpose of International Children’s Book Day is “to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.”
What better way, I thought, than to celebrate a little of the gorgeousness that is Margaret Mahy, with a wee excerpt from The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate:
“The little man could only stare. He hadn’t dreamed of the BIGNESS of the sea. He hadn’t dreamed of the blueness of it. He hadn’t thought it would roll like kettledrums, and swish itself onto the beach. He opened his mouth, and the drift and the dream of it, the weave and the wave of it, the fume and the foam of it never left him again. At his feet the sea stroked the sand with soft little paws. Farther out, the great, graceful breakers moved like kings into court, trailing the peacock-patterned sea behind them.”
Now isn’t that quite simply the most amazingly wonderful use of language? And doesn’t if convey an absolutely gorgeous sense of wonder?
For me, these are gorgeous words indeed. I hope you can think of another story that’s equally amazing, gorgeous, and wonderful (for you!) in honour of International Children’s Book Day, which (to be honest) is every day for me, not just yesterday! 😉