Tuesday Teaser

The following is a little long for a quote, but it was one of the most compelling openings for a story that I've read in a while. I loved it!

"Edward Hall sat under the front porch of the big house on Walden Street in Concord, Massachusetts, and thought about his two ambitions in life. The first was to be the President of the United States. That was not very likely, but it was at least possible. The second was unlikely and impossible altogether, because he had been born into the wrong family. Why, oh, why wasn't his name 'Robert Robinson' instead of 'Edward Hall'?

"...If only fathers and mothers would be more careful when they chose names for their children! If only they would pick names that sounded well in Backwards English! 'Edward Hall,' for example, was all right in ordinary English, but it was terrible the other way around -- 'Drawde Llah' didn't sound like anything. But 'Robert Robinson' -- there was a name! If you turned it backwards and softened the 's,' it was transformed into a name as strange and fantastic as that of an ambassador from some foreign land -- 'Trebor Nosnibor'! Edward put his two ambitions in life together and whispered under his breath, 'Introducing the President of the United States, Mr. Tebor Nosnibor!' How glorious!"

(The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton, Chapter 1, page 1-2)