“Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere — be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”
Sign up for biweekly blog posts + my quarterly author newsletter and receive a printable quote from my novel, Blue Birds.
Caroline, I LOVE this book. And I love Francie Nolan. I can identify with “Only let me be something every blessed minute.” This morning, my 7th-grader was in a bad mood, and she snapped at me on the way to school. Instead of responding, I thought about the situation and just said let her be. She has every right to have a bad mood moment as anybody else. So I didn’t say anything else to her for the rest of the ride. And by the time we were almost at her school, she struck up a delightful conversation. So by the time she got out of the car, her bad mood had changed to a good one. So sometimes we just need to let people be, especially our kids.
Have a great weekend, Caroline.
Linda, so well said! Your girl has an insightful mama. I’ve always felt like Francie and I would have been good friends (if she were a real person, that is).
She’s wonderful. I also really liked Caddie Woodlawn and I really like Arya in the George R.R. Martin books.
Time to read this book again!