Book Quotes Revealed

Most of our book quotes were identified by readers in the comments. Only three stumped everyone, I think! I’ll save those for last.

“Reshpeckabiggle!”

Beth correctly recognized that as one of good old Puddleglum’s besotted mutterings during his brief unfortunate lapse in The Silver Chair. Scott does the best Puddleglum voice: sounds a bit like the narrator from Our Town. Ayup. Puddleglum is trying to defend his honor as a respectable marshwiggle. Nothing is ever “respectable” around here: it’s always reshpeckabiggle. (I’ve often thought it would make a perfect blog name.)

“George Washington’s hogs, on the other hand, were a genteel and amiable sort.”

The Activities Coordinator knows her David Small! Small is one of our favorite picture book authors & illustrators, and I think of all his books George Washington’s Cows is the best.

“Ohhhh, Betsy’s ten tomorrow
and then all of us are ten!
We will all be ten tomorrow,
we will all be ladies then.”

Lots of Betsy-Tacy fans in the comments! Kudos to Gail and KimN for pegging this as the song that Betsy, Tacy, and Tib sing in Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill.

“She went boneless.”

One more example of Mo Willems’s genius: this perfect description of toddler behavior from Knuffle Bunny, as Anne and Mamacrow recognized.

“Call in Mr. Pye!”

We used to quote this one all the time, but it had fallen out of regular use until recently. Kate and Sarah nailed it as a line from Ginger Pye. The Pye kids’ father is a “famous bird man,” and whenever anyone in the government has a bird-related question out goes the cry to “Call in Mr. Pye!” When my big girls were little and Scott was a work-at-home freelancer, we echoed the cry anytime we needed to summon Scott from his basement office for heroic tasks like Opening Jars or Dealing With Horrible Insects.

The three quotes no one recognized are from three of our favorite picture books!

“When the bear arrived, of course, there weren’t enough macaroons to go around.”

I’ve quoted this one here before. It’s from James in the House of Aunt Prudence by Timothy Bush, a book of immense story and few words. What words there are, are choice.

I think I’ll save the other two books for posts of their own—not to be a tease, but just because my hands-free time for typing has run out for the day.