Quotes from Gladys M. Hunt

Grief is like a journey one must take on a winding mountainside, often seeing the same scenery many times, a road which eventually leads to somewhere we've never been before.

This savoring of life is no small thing. The element of wonder is almost lost today with the onslaught of the media and gadgets of our noisy world. To let a child lose it is to make him blind and deaf to the best of life.

Children have two basic needs, writes Erich Fromm in the Art of Loving: they need both milk and honey from their parents. Milk symbolizes the care given to physical needs...Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, that special quality that makes life sing with enjoyment for all it holds. Gromm says, Most parents are capable of giving milk, but only a minority of giving honey, too. To give honey, one must love honey and have it to give.

What kind of books? Sories that make for wonder. Stories that make for laughter. Stories that stir one within with and understanding of the true natures of courage, of love, of beauty. Stories that make one tingle with high adventure, with daring, with grim determination, with the capacity of seeing danger through to the end. Stories that bring our minds to kneel in reverence; stories that show the tenderness of true mercy, the strength of loyalty, the unmawkish respect for what is good.

Some children like how-to-do-it or all-about-everything type books, but I suspect parents like them best because they look so educational. These really should be in a separate category because they don't usually classify and literature but are more nearly manuals of information. Paul Hazard suggests that instead of pouring out so much knowledge on a child's soul that it is crushed, we should plant a seed of an idea that will develop from the inside.

That is what a book does. It introduces us to people and places we wouldn't ordinarily know. A good book is a magic gateway into a wider world of wonder, beauty, delight, and adventure. Books are experiences that make us grow, that add something to our inner stature.

What kind of books? 'Stories that make for wonder. Stories that make for laughter. Stories that stir one within with and understanding of the true natures of courage, of love, of beauty. Stories that make one tingle with high adventure, with daring, with grim determination, with the capacity of seeing danger through to the end. Stories that bring our minds to kneel in reverence; stories that show the tenderness of true mercy, the strength of loyalty, the unmawkish respect for what is good.

Every child needs to see the possibilities of being human, watch the consequence of choices, and have their hearts stretched by goodness and courage in action.

Literature is the royal road that enables us to enter the realm of the imagination.

parents who read widely together with their children are going to be those who most influence their children

We influence by what we are and by what we do. In one sense, it could be said that we influence others simply by being.

Since words are the way we communicate experiences, truth, and situations, who should know how to use them more creatively than people who are aware of their Creator? The world cries out for imaginative people who can spell out truth in words that communicate meaningfully to people in their human situation.

Affirming, nurturing people influence others far beyond their intention simply because they provide rich soil in which individual personalities can grow.

Good literature should always make life larger.