I love to read the classic books to my girls. When we read, I often pause to highlight certain quotes from the books that I find enlightening or inspiring. Words of wisdom that I want them to remember. Autumn then makes handwritten artistic pages of the quotes as part of her homeschool.

We read many books together. Reading is something that we do daily, for at least an hour. Every time we begin a new book I put the date that we started it and the date that we finished it in the front of the book so that they will remember when we read it together when they look back at the books when they are older. We can also record when we read it again, or they can write when they read the book again in the future, or when they read it to their own children someday.

I have been wanting to share those quotes here on the blog too, because I want to remember them and because they are so inspirational and uplifting.

This quote is from, “The Velveteen Rabbit” on being real. (Kesa especially enjoys this story.)

…

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side beside near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you…you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

…

Become. Be Real. Even it it takes a long time and you are no longer beautiful in the eyes of those who do not understand.

Much Love!