The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the enchanting power of storytelling and imagination.
In the quote from Kate DiCamillo, the arrangement of shapes into words symbolizes how stories take form and transport us into different worlds. The phrase 'Once upon a time' evokes a sense of nostalgia and magic, signifying the beginning of countless tales that inspire wonder and creativity in both writers and readers alike.
In practice
This quote can be used to open a storytelling session at a library.
If you sit down and read with your kid, either having your child read to you or you reading to your child at a regular time each day, it deepens the relationship. You don't have to talk about stuff; the story will do that work for you.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.
I was lucky enough to have a mother who took me to the library - the public library - twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. And also bought me books. And also read aloud to me.
There is no right or wrong way to tell a story. You have to find your own way. You can get your idea from listening, looking, or imagining. Stories are everywhere. All you have to do is pay attention.
Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.
Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book become one of a million different books . . .
The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
No literature is complete until the language it was written in is dead.
Is there anything in the world better than words on the page? Magic signs, the voices of the dead, building blocks to make wonderful worlds better than this one, comforters, companions in loneliness. Keepers of secrets, speakers of the truth...all those glorious words.
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