Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All children's books are about ideals. Adult fiction sets out to portray and then explain the world as it really is; books for chi...ldren present it as it should be. Child readers come to them hoping for a certain amount of instruction, but chiefly for stories in which the petty restrictions of ordinary life are removed: they want to encounter people who can fly, geese that lay golden eggs, frogs that turn into princes, spaceships piloted by children, anything that measures up to their ideals of adventure and imagination. Adults, on the other hand, are more likely to want to feed the children a set of moral examples. By all means, let them have their fun, but the opportunity of providing models of ideal behaviour is not to be wasted.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
They yelleden as fiendes doon in hell; The duckes cryden as men would them quell;... The geese for feare flewen over the trees; Out of the hive came the swarm of bees.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Where has it all gone? I remember that twenty years ago there were geese and cranes and ducks and grouse here, clouds of them!... ...And there are far fewer animals. Wolf and fox are rare, brother, not to mention bears or mink. There used even to be moose!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Does the first wild-goose care whether the others follow or not?... I don't think so he is so happy to be off he knows where he is going so we must be drawn or we must fly, like the snow-geese of the Arctic circle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The radio ... goes on early in the morning and is listened to at all hours of the day, until nine, ten and often eleven o'clock in... the evening. This is certainly a sign that the grown-ups have infinite patience, but it also means that the power of absorption of their brains is pretty limited, with exceptions, of course--I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. One or two news bulletins would be ample per day! But the old geese, well--I've said my piece!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »