The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

★★★

"Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and suppose.  Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die."

Lamb by Christopher Moore

★★★★

"This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel one may have a bit more praying to do."

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.  And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it.  I'm going to live as like a narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country.  Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect."

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"Things never happen the same way twice."

The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

" 'Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story, not hers.  No one is told any story but their own."

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books.  As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still.  But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it.  I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis."

Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.  It also depends on what sort of person you are."

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

★★★★★

"She'd been telling it for years, though not when Mother could hear.  Mother would have said Eliza was upsetting Sammy with her fall tales.  Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales."

After Cassandra loses her beloved grandmother, Nell, she is thrown into a unexpected journey to discover who her grandmother really was.  Starting with an old book of fairy tales, Cassandra is able to trace the footsteps of her grandmother.  Going back and forth between present day and the 1930s, the novel reveals many unexpected twists and Cassandra begins to understand the  dark secrets of her family's past.

This book was wonderful!  I loved everything about it, especially the focus on an old book of fairy tales...some of which were actually included in the novel.  The story kept me reading late into the night and I have since read all of Kate Morton's other three books.  I really enjoyed her other books, all of which go back and forth between the past and present, but this one was by far my favorite.

This book was #2 on my top ten list of 2012.

The Night Circus by Erin Mordenstern

★★★★★

"The circus arrives without warning.  No announcements precede it.  It is simply there, when yesterday it was not."

" 'Stories have changed, my dear boy,' the man in the grey suit says, his voices almost imperceptibly sad.  'There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need to rescue.  Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experiences at least the ones worth something, in any case.  There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings.  The quests lack clarity of goalor path.  The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are.  And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise.  Things keep overlapping and blur, your story is part of your sister's story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where and of them may lead.  Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl.  And is not the dragon the hero of this own story?  Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act?  Through perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with its prey."

"Someone needs to tell those tales.  When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their toes for breakfast with a nice cup of souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative.  theres magic in that.  It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.  From the mundance to the profound.  You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someones soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose.  that tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words.  That is your role, your gift.  Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy.  Do not forget that...there are many kinds of magic, after all."

"This is not magic.  This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it.  Look around you...Not one of them even has an inkling of the possibilities in the world, and what's worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them.  They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence."

"You're not destined for choosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it's not true.  You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done.  Sometimes thats enough."

Set in the world of a magical circus, this novel tells the story of Celia and Marco.  To bystanders, the circus is simply a world of entertainment and wonder, but it sets the stage for a competition between the two who have been trained since childhood.  As they get to know one another and eventually fall in love, they it becomes evident that only one of them is meant to be left standing at the end.

I can't say enough about this book and it is by far one of the best books I have read.  It had a wonderfully mysterious story and the description was breathtaking.  I loved the whole thing, but my favorite parts were the amazing descriptions of all of the magical and unique circus tents...I read them over and over again.  I really liked how the author used the different characters through out the novel to reveal tiny bits and pieces of the story.  I can't wait for Erin Morgenstern's next book to come out!!!

This book was #1 on my top ten list of 2012.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

★★★

"It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root.  This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history."