1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Lesson Learned: Not all humans have humanity.
Favorite Quote: “There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep ‘em all away from you. That’s never possible.”
2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Lesson Learned: You go faster alone, but farther together.
Favorite Quote: “Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.”
3. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Lesson Learned: Don’t be afraid of change.
Favorite Quote: “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
4. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Lesson Learned: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Favorite Quote: “She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it’s supposed to make you feel something.”
5. Bossypants by Tina Fey
Lesson Learned: The only opinions of yourself that matter are your own.
Favorite Quote: “Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions. Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.”
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Lesson Learned: Navigating through life can prove to be difficult.
Favorite Quote: "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
7. Matilda by Roald Dahl
Lesson Learned: Put your heart into it.
Favorite Quote: “Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable.”
8. The Giver by Lois Lowery
Lesson Learned: You can’t have the good without the bad.
Favorite Quote: “His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: ‘Do you lie?’ But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true.”
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Lesson Learned: Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it.
Favorite Quote: “I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”
10. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Lesson Learned: I do believe in magic.
Favorite Quote: "For in dreams we enter a world that is entirely our own. Let them swim in the deepest ocean or glide over the highest cloud."
