Another One for the Books

I have a Facebook page. When you are on Facebook, you see all the quizzes, name assignments, and other folderol that one's friends play. Some of my friends are more game to play (so to speak) than others; all the same, sooner or later, they will surely run out of names, colors, movie stars, and 20th century decades that they resemble the most.

But every now and then one crops up that makes me smile. Frances came up with a winner earlier this week.

Monday morning, Frances's status read: "She still says nothing, just stands with her back to me, pouring two mugs of coffee."

My mind started puzzling over her comment. It was written late the night before. Did she have a fight with her mother? One of her sisters? Then I read the comment Frances had posted underneath:

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence AS YOUR STATUS. AND POST these instructions in a comment to this status.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST book...

For a book junkie like me, that was like laying out a pharmacopoeia of controlled substances and saying "Take your pick, April. Have seconds!"

I held off until Tuesday before I succumbed. I picked up the nearest book, turned to page 56, counted to five, then posted: "You knew, you knew that was going to happen and you didn't say a word."

The source? The Time Traveler's Wife, which was sitting on my desk because I just finished rereading it Monday night.

The rules of engagement intrigue me. The "closest" book? For those of us who read a lot of books all the time, that makes for some rather interesting choices. Sometimes they are all "closest," especially if I am at my desk in the first floor study. For those of us who frequently go back to old favorites when we are in between "new" reads, the possibilities become even more quixotic. And for those of us who frequently return to what may be deemed "children's fiction," well, the challenge becomes irresistible. (You know what I am writing about because chances are you do the same thing. Why is it that we have all read the entire Harry Potter series countless times? Good writing, for one thing, but also for the sheer comfort of worrying about Voldemort rather than the latest unemployment figures.)

Using the core of the idea, I have designed a two-part challenge. I went and pulled 15 children's novels (children's literature, youth fiction, call it what you will), not entirely at random, and wrote down the fifth sentence on page 56 from each one. If there was no fifth sentence due to a chapter ending, I wrote down the last sentence. If the sentence was part of a quote in the original, I put quotations around it to keep it in context. The sentences are:

"I've scattered largesse."

"You deserve a reward."

But the owl laid motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.

"You can share the ribbon."

"There must be some other way to - " began Milo.

"But I suppose it is all humbug, like so many other patented articles."

Ginger rubbed herself against my legs.

All light was gone.

"You don't have to spin a web."

I stuck a few ferns in them so they would look as if they were growing there, and then ran back to camp, breathless.

John and Barbara gurgled from their perambulator.

"They're going to finally let you out of here!"

"Where?"

It was all right, then, to lick the maple syrup from your fingers.

With a gun and a knife and some matches.

Have you figured them out? Do you know where they came from? You know a few of them, surely. (The answers are at the end of the post.)

The second part of the challenge is to take the random sentences and assemble them into a narrative. (You may dispense with the quotation marks as you need to for this part of the challenge.) The result, depending on your sentences, can be very avant-garde. Here is mine:

I've scattered largesse. All light was gone.

"They're going to finally let you out of here!" John and Barbara gurgled from their perambulator. "Where?"

"There must be some other way to - " began Milo. With a gun and a knife and some matches. But the owl laid motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage.

"You can share the ribbon." Ginger rubbed herself against my legs. "You deserve a reward."

It was all right, then, to lick the maple syrup from your fingers. But I suppose it is all humbug, like so many other patented articles. I stuck a few ferns in them so they would look as if they were growing there, and then ran back to camp, breathless. You don't have to spin a web.

I suppose for some people this is too geeky, but as I have previously established, my geek credentials are the gold standard. And if you are like I was when I read the Facebook post, you are already reaching for the closest book.

Go ahead. Page 56 is waiting for you.

Answers in order of quote: The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett; These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling; Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary; The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum; The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle; Charlotte's Web by E. B. White; My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George; Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers; Holes by Louis Sacher; All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor; Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt; Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.