Katherine Patterson's Perfect Paragraph

I did it again. Walked into the library with a dollar in my pocket that I just had to spend on a book that I'm sure I already own. But it was in such a nice condition and had that professionally applied contact paper covering that I love.... So I gave in. That's the horrible thing about library book sales. They entice you with their $1, $2, and .50 prices. I'll never shop on Amazon or Ebay again and someday my book shelves will overflow with library castoffs.

I bought The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Patterson. Everyone knows about Bridge to Terabithia, but I haven't met very many people that have read The Master Puppeteer. It's a historical fiction set in Japan during a famine in the 18th century. I read it once as a kid, and I don't remember much. Actually, I only remember ONE paragraph. Yep. That's right. I paid a whopping fifty cents for a book because of a single paragraph. Even as a kid, I liked that paragraph so much that I memorized it instantly. In the book, 13-year-old Jiro becomes an apprentice to a Puppeteer company and at the same time, a masked man named Saburo starts stealing rice and giving it to the poor. Unfortunately, the thefts of rice inspire the nobles to strike back at the village and in the middle of all the political chaos and violence, Jiro finds out that the old, blind, Master Puppeteer is the thief Saburo. Jiro's world shatters. He locks the old man in a storage room and runs away, but not before someone from the puppet theater catches him and drags him back to the stage. Jiro's friend has disappeared and he's the only one who can do the part of the girl Akoya's feet for the "Torture of Koto" scene, a famously difficult scene to perform. Here's the paragraph. Actually, two. I'll put in the preceding paragraph to preserve the proper context:

"Jiro grasped [the hem of the Akoya's skirt] between his fingers and bent into position. Ow. Some god saved him from crying aloud as Yoshida's high clog banged into his ankle. The next second the three of them were gliding onto the stage behind the puppet. The performance of "Torture of Koto" had begun.


If he lived to be one hundred and became a master puppeteer with a theater of his own, he would never again rival the performance he gave that day. Had his concentration wavered for one instant from the performance, he would have gone to pieces, so he drove himself into the depths of it. He was like a pearl diver, leaving the world of light and air far behind, plunging toward the treasure at the bottom of the sea." pg 152

See? Wasn't that cool? I don't know if it works as well unless you read the whole book, but as a kid, I was stunned by the intensity of the description. Particularly the first line: "If he lived to be a hundred..." I still love it! If you have any favorite quotes from novels of short stories that you'd like to share, please comment below.