Category: Posts

The Harry Potter series is action-packed, passion-filled and, quite simply, life-changing. Harry Potter, my all-time favorite character, is a small boy who grew up in difficult circumstances. After his parents died of an unknown cause, he was sent to live with his horrid aunt, uncle and cousin. When Harry receives a letter inviting him to attend a special boarding school called Hogwarts, he jumps at the chance. There, he takes classes, plays sports and makes new friends. But his friends aren’t ordinary, and neither is Harry. They’re all special… wizard special. And he doesn’t go to math classes or play soccer. He attends transfiguration and plays Quidditch fifty feet in the air on a broomstick!

When trouble brews at school, Harry is determined to figure out what’s behind it. In the process, he may even find the answer to what really happened to his parents all those years before.

Books about Harry Potter:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by JK Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling

Here are some of the best Harry Potter quotes out there. They inspired me, so I hope they will inspire you too! Please comment if you have any more to share and I’ll add them.

1. “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on, that’s who we really are.” ~Sirius Black
2. “Always…” ~Severus Snape
3. “It doesn’t matter what someone was born, but what they grow to be.” ~Albus Dumbledore.
4. “Of course it’s good, I made it.” ~Ginny Weasley
5. “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” ~Albus Dumbledore
6. “It is our choices that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~Albus Dumbledore.
7. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” ~The Marauders
8. “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ~Albus Dumbledore
9. “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a look at how he treats in inferiors, not his equals.” ~Sirius Black
10. “I don’t go looking for trouble–trouble usually finds me.” ~Harry Potter
11. “Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic, both capable of inflicting injury and remedying it.” ~Albus Dumbledore
12. “In dreams, we enter a world that is entirely our own.” ~Albus Dumbledore
13. “Do not pity the dead. Pity the living. And above all, those who love without love.” ~Albus Dumbledore
14. “Wit beyond measure is a man’s greatest treasure.” ~Luna Lovegood
15. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to our friends.” ~Albus Dumbledore
16. “The things we lose always have ways of coming back to us, if not always in the way we expect.” ~Luna Lovegood
17. “Always at the tone of surprise.” ~Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger
18. “What’s coming will come and we’ll meet it when it does.” ~Hagrid

The are some great quotes from The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Please, please comment if you have anymore to share and I’ll add them. Here is the website for the movies: http://www.thehungergames.movie/#/?lang=us-en

1. “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.”
2. “Fire burns brighter in the dark.”
3. “May the odds be ever in your favor.”
4. “They don’t own me. If I’m gonna die, I want to still be me.”
5. “I volunteer as tribute!”
6. “Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!”
7. “It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together then it does to fall apart.”
8. “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.”
9. “My nightmares are usually about losing you.”
10. “You love me. Real or not real? Real.”
11. “It’s the things we love most that destroy us.”
12. “At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”

These are some great sites that might help you and get your works read.

1. Spilling Ink (the website of a great writing advice book) : http://www.spillinginkthebook.com/the-book/
2. Stone Soup (a magazine that publishes work from kids ages 8-12): http://www.stonesoup.com
3. Writopia (a website for the writing camp/after school activity if you live in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Washington DC, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Chicago): http://www.writopialab.org
4. SCBWI (a website for anyone who wants to write child lit): http://www.scbwi.org

Hey guys! AnnaB again, here to tell you how to come up with great ideas for stories. Actually, let me rephrase that. I’m here to help you and give you advice on how to come up with story ideas. Maybe your way is dressing up in a bunny onesie and screaming “yodel-ah-he-hoo!” out the window. Thats fine. Great, actually. You’re thinking uniquely. But I’m here to tell you how I do it.

The first thing I do is sit down at my computer and surf through some of my older stories. But I know that some of you don’t have any stories yet. So if my mind is completely blank and I’m on the verge of throwing myself out the window, here’s what I do:

I write something silly like, “Toodles went to the mall and sat on one of the toilets for sale.” Then I see if I can turn that into something more serious, like, “I went to the mall with my little sister who brought along her imaginary friend, Toodles.” Of course that’s not very descriptive or interesting. It needs to be fleshed out more. How about, “My afternoon was going to be perfect. Just me and Mia, surrounded by shops and food and the hustle-bustle of people. We’d giggle as we passed the corn dog cart, the sickly smell of them hanging in the air. But instead of just the two of us, we were accompanied Toodles. And wherever Toodles went, Sabrina went with him.”

It’s not much, but at least I have a small seedling for a basic story idea; a girl going to the mall and her little sister tagging along. Maybe it annoys the girl. I’m sure some of you out there can relate to that. (I can’t, I’m an only child.) The story could go anywhere from there. They could find out that Sabrina (the little sister) was going to turn into a monster. They could find a magic apple in the elevator. They could be bullied by teenagers. Whatever.

Another way to find a great story idea is to think about people that are different than me. What about the people who can’t afford basics, like a toothbrush or a healthy amount of food? What about the people who live a life of riches? They have tables coated in gold, swimming pools of chocolate and sheets made of money. What struggles do boys go through? What about the people who practically live for soccer? How do those people live? I want to know. So I write about them.

There are so many different ways to come up with ideas. You can go for a walk to get your gears moving. You can go to the mall and look for unusual items to include. (Although I hate the mall, it is a very effective strategy.) You can sit and think for hours. You can start off with fan fiction and grow your own story out of that. That’s how I came up with the idea for a story about a girl who goes to a summer camp for children with special abilities like controlling water and handling fire with bare hands.

Lots of stories start out with ideas that are not fully-developed or formed yet. Most of them grow over time. Maybe some characters will be discarded and new ones added. Maybe the perspective will change. Maybe the whole plot will change. Who knows. Actually, you will know if you continue to write. So do! I know that you have a story brewing in your mind right now. All you need to do now is write it down!

~AnnaB