Note: Place bookmarks of makeshift but special value in the books within your own library. Take the books from the shelf. See what the bookmarks found. Love. Empower. Inspire.

The Awakening
She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her, as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul of responsibility.

Frankenstien
“I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune; and I feel as if I could die in peace, now that my innocence is acknowledged by you…”

Emergence
Jerry was not to be deterred. Dawn retaliated by divorcing him, declaring she really wanted to love a woman–not a man! In time, Jerry remarried and is now happy with Barbara.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Dear friend,
I wish I could report that it’s getting better, but unfortunately it isn’t. It’s hard, too, because we’ve started school again, and I can’t go to the same places where I used to go. And it can’t be like it was. And I wasn’t ready to say good-bye just yet.

Parable of the Sower
The two movers were a black and a white, and I could see that Cory considered that hopeful. Maybe Olivar wouldn’t be the white enclave that Dad had expected.

Mother Courage and Her Children
CHAPLAIN (to MOTHER COURAGE, *pointing at the *COOK): I tried to hold him off but he said you’d bewitched him. He dreams about you.
COOK (lighting a clay pipe): Brandy from the fair hand of a lady, that’s for me. And don’t embarrass me any more: the stories the chaplain was telling me on the way over still have me blushing.
MOTHER COURAGE: A man of his cloth! I must get you both something to drink or you’ll be making improper advances out of sheer boredom.
Chaplain: That *is indeed a temptation, said the court chaplain, and gave way to it. (Turning toward KATRIN as he walks:) *And who is this captivating young person?
MOTHER COURAGE: She’s not a captivating young person, she is a respectable young person.

The Handmaid’s Tale
You can’t just *do *that, said the woman who sat next to me. This sounded false, improbable like something you would say on television.
It isn’t me, he said. You don’t understand. Please go, now. His voice was rising. I don’t want any trouble. If there’s trouble, the books might be lost, things will get broken…He looked over his shoulder. They’re outside, he said, in my office. If you don’t go no they’ll come themselves. They gave me ten minutes. By now he sounded crazier than ever.
He’s loopy, someone said out loud; which we must all have thought.
But I could see out into the corridor, and there were two men standing there, in uniforms, with machine guns. This was too theatrical to be true, yet there they were: sudden apparitions, like Martians. There was a dreamlike quality to them; they were too vivid, too at odds with there surroundings.
Just leave the machines, he said while we were getting our things together, filing out. As if we could have taken them.
We stood in a cluster, on the steps outside the library. We didn’t know what to say to one another. Since none of us understood what had happened, there was nothing much we could say. We looked at one another’s faces and saw dismay, and a certain shame, as if we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t.
It’s outrageous, one woman said, but without belief. What was it about this that made us feel we deserved it?

You Don’t Know Me
We are a team trying to survive here. All smell emission will be curtailed until further notice. The pores of my skin click shut. Heart, stop beating, my brain orders. Find another, quieter way to pump blood. My heart immediately suspends all pumping pumping activity and improvises a new “slow trickle” system of blood irrigation.

This Is How It Always Is
As with so many things, this needed only a name to become real. A name and more hair. Mr Tongo reported that lots of parents of kids like Claude went to court to change birth certificates and seal records, that lots of kids like Poppy switched schools so they could start over where no one knew who they really were so they could be, instead, who they really were.

The Jungle
This was more cruel yet for Ona, who ought to have stayed home and nursed him, the doctor said, for her own health as well as the baby’s; but Ona had to go to work, and leave him for Teta Elzbieta to feed upon the pale blue poison that was called milk at the corner-grocery. Ona’s confinement lost her only a week’s wages–she would go to the factory the second Monday, and the best that Jurgis could persuade her was to ride in the car, and let him run along behind and help her to Brown’s when she alighted. After that it would be all right, said Ona, and it was no strain sitting still sewing hams all day; and if she waited longer she might find that her dreadful forelady had put someone else in her place. That would be a greater calamity than ever now, Ona continued, on account of the baby. They would all have to work harder now, Ona continued, on account of the baby. They would all have to work harder now on his account. It was such a responsibility–they must not have the baby grow up to suffer as they had. And this indeed had been the first Jurgis had thought of himself–he had clenched his hands and braced himself anew for the struggle, for the sake of that tiny mite of human possibility.

A Light in the Attic
Overdues
What do I do?
What do I do?
This library book is 42
Years overdue.
I admit that it’s mine
But I can’t pay the fine–
Should I turn it in
Or hide it again?
What do I do?
What do I do?

Circus Mirandus
Micah didn’t tell her the truth. He said he’d been out riding his bike “for exercise.” Aunt Gertrudis didn’t buy it for a second.
At first, she only lectured, but then she saw the bootlace wrapped around Micah’s wrist. Something Micah hadn’t expected flitted across her face–recognition. An angry flush reddened her cheeks.
“Take it off,” she said in a low voice. “Take that filthy thing off.”
Micah shoved his hand in his pocket to hide it.
“Ephraim’s old lies,” she hissed. “I won’t have it anymore! That thing should be burned.” She swooped down on him and yanked his hand toward her.
“Let go!” Micah struggled to pull his arm free.
“It’s a stupid, stupid joke,” she said. “And it’s dangerous.”
“No it’s not!”
She dug at the lace, but the more she pulled, the more it tightened around Micah’s wrist.
Micah didn’t know *what *had possessed her. “Stop it, Aunt Gertrudis. It’s mine.”
He snatched his arm as hard as he could and wretched himself free.

Psalm 17:1-2
Give ear to my prayer–
It does not rise from deceitful lips.
May my vindication come from you;
May your eyes see what is right.