#0055: Ember Series #2: The People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau

[orbitaldiamonds]

Ember Series #2
The People of Sparks
by Jeanne DuPrau
p.95-96 “Special things first.” She bent over an open crate and rummaged around for a moment. When she stood up again, she was holding a blackened iron cooking pot, so big she had to use both hands to lift it. “What am I offered?” she cried.
     “Half a bushel of dried apricots!”
     “A bushel of peas!”
     “Barrel of cornmeal!”
     “The woman listened, cocking her head, her eyebrows raised. She waited until the offers stopped, then she pointed to a tall young woman with shiny black hair who had offered five loaves of apricot cornbread. “Done!” she said, and she lowered the pot into the young woman’s hands.
    
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#0056: Ember Series #3: The Prophet of Yonwood, by Jeanne DuPrau

[orbitaldiamonds]

Ember Series #3
The Prophet of Yonwood
by Jeanne DuPrau



p.26-27 The president ended with his usual sentence: “Let us pray to God for the safety of our people and the success of our endeavors.” Nickie always wondered about this. The idea seemed to be that if you prayed extremely hard--especially if a lot of people prayed at once--maybe God would change things. The trouble was, what if your enemy was praying to? Which prayer would God listen to?

p.28 This is how Nickie was: she wanted to know about everybody and everything--not just encyclopedia-type information, but ordinary things like what people did at their jobs and what their houses looked like inside and what they talked about. When she passed two or three people walking together on the street, she always hoped to catch an intriguing bit of conversation, like “I found her lying there dead!” Or “...and he left that very day without telling a soul and was never seen again!” But almost always, all she heard were the dull, connecting bits of the conversation, things like “And so I said to her...” and “Yeah, I think so too,” and “So it’s really kind of like...” And by the time they said whatever came next, they were out of earshot.


p.57-58 As soon as Amanda had gone off with Mrs. Beeson, Nickie found a pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote down these words: Sinners. Wrongness. Forces of evil. Shield of goodness. Those were the things to remember. It was so perfect--she could accomplish her Goal #3 by helping to battle the forces of evil and build the shield of goodness. Just the very words made her feel like a warrior. Maybe she should give something up, the way everyone else was. If she did, would she have more love to give to God? She thought probably her love for God was a little weak, since she didn’t know much about him and hadn’t really thought about whether she loved him or not. It was hard to love someone invisible that you’d never met.

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