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Start your story with someone being given a book recommendation.

Posted in Middle School on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 33 stories

What You Can Do With Your Book

Winner of Contest #142 🏆

You present me with a gift bag as if legions of angels will descend, trumpeting your thoughtfulness in remembering my [insert celebratory event here]. I’m gracious, of course. You shouldn’t have!And I mean that. You shouldn’t have. Because now you are stepping over the line. We are simply:co-workers mothers with children at the same school neighbors with dogs old-friends-from-college, or spouses-of-old-friends-from-college. Regardless, we are not on gift-bagging terms. Especially the kind you immediate...

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Heroin: No Postcards From Portugal

Submitted to Contest #142

Heroin: No Postcards From Portugal“You may like reading, The Freaky Fungal Family Tree,” I told one of the two waitresses attending my table who’d noticed I was reading, and then had asked for book recommendations on that sun-splashed afternoon. That’s the explanation any of us three shared when strangers encountered us thereafter and inquired how we’d first met. After all, and because of our age differences, we were a curiosity. The two, who at first, became muses for my literary work. Eventually, well, what can I say? Legally, we were all ...

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Friendly Advice

Submitted to Contest #142

Content warning: Mentions of miscarriage"You should read The Light Between Oceans," someone will tell you, six months after you miscarry. They won't know what you know now, the myriad ways your own minefield of a body can betray you. You'll stand by the stove preparing dinner, the landline cradled between your shoulder and ear, and feel the steam from the boiling water scald your face. You'll watch the bubbles rise from the bottom to kiss the surface while your friend goes into detail about the novel."The couple in that book had two miscarri...

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The First Five Years

Submitted to Contest #142

The First Five Years. That’s what the diner guy said. I mean, he was a bit seedy looking, and he had a gross mustard stain on the belly of his shirt, but what did I have to lose? So here I am at the bookstore looking up this random title. Ok, here it is! Wait a minute. This little girl on the cover kind of looks like I did- but only kind of- when I was small. I check out at the counter with a young boy of about seventeen. He’s got shoulder-length wavy brown hair and a mouth full of braces. I think he’s the owner’s nephew or something. Anyway...

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Children of the Earth: Volume in The Book of Evil

Submitted to Contest #142

Children of the Earth: Volume in The Book of EvilIt's a book about the history of the world and mankind. Here, read it, see for yourself. But first I'll need to warn you...Evil is unspectacular and always human and shares our bed and eats at our own table.Evil writes these tales in blood and tears, leaving behind devastation and chaos. It inscribes on the tender surface of the human heart and carves into the delicate tissues of the human brain, spreading dissension, fear, and devastation, leaving a trail of shattered lives and broken hearts....

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Illusory

Submitted to Contest #142

Danny Groop walked down main street with heavy steps. His day couldn’t have been any worse. He had been turned down at three job interviews and somehow lost a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket. His self-esteem could not take any more blows today. And on top of it all it was raining, and he didn’t have an umbrella. Danny’s stomach growled as he passed all the scents fighting through the precipitation from the delis and cafes. But his twenty-dollar bill was supposed to pay for dinner and…it was gone. He sighed again. Four years he had ...

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Of Cats and Men

Submitted to Contest #142

The St. Augustine Library stood tall and proud under the clear blue Autumn sky. The crisp, cool air clung to the librarian's clothing and hair as she clipped her way up the concrete steps in her sensible black pumps. Flipping her coat collar up to her cover her neck, she still couldn't seem to keep the chill out. Cheeks bright pink from the cold, she fumbled for the keys to open the enormous front doors. "Today is going to be a good day, today is going to be a good day", she chanted her morning mantra over and over as she began to prepare th...

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If People Were Books

Submitted to Contest #142

"Give this book a read. I believe it might change your life!" he winked at me, revealing a missing tooth. I clutched the book to my chest and skipped away from the shop while my mum hurried to catch up. Abu Saleh was a man in his mid-fifties or maybe older. He looked just as dusty as his stacks of pre-loved books. His book store was like nothing I'd seen before, or since. The only way I can describe it would be a rabbit hole. I suspected it wasn't meant to be a store at all. My mum's theory was that it could've been a broom closet or som...

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Memories of the Lost Soul

Submitted to Contest #142

The sunlight came in through the thin curtains. Its orange warm beam fell on a stack of books in a room. A bedroom. Someone was waking up. There she is, Stacy Wildwood. Her brown shoulder-length hair looked golden in the sunlight. She sat up and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. Stacy took her place in the driver’s seat of a 4x4 truck. And saw something laying on the passenger’s seat. A book with a note on it. This will change your life Stacy took the book and opened it. There was nothing, just blank pages. She threw the book back and ste...

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A Tete-a-Tete With A Librarian

Submitted to Contest #142

A series of hanging lights lit the library. The hall was otherwise silent, except for the occasional tapping of a keyboard or the whirring of a printer. A faint murmur could be heard. "Shhh," said the librarian and the silence was restored. A young man donning a cap that covered almost half of his face entered the library. He walked to the corner table and saw that it was occupied. With fumes emanating from his nose and ears, he walked to the librarian and demanded, "The corner table is occupied. It's mine. Ask that woman to leave." The...

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That Book is in the Back

Submitted to Contest #142

"I take this task very seriously," Alice said. I was waiting for a punchline, but one didn't come. Alice, the boss librarian at my local branch, stood behind the counter wearing a smart, smocked dress and a serious look on her face. I'd been to this branch a dozen or so times and seen her hustling in the back but had never spoken to her before. Until today. "It can be a life or death decision," she said. Again, I waited for a punchline that never arrived. "Ugh," I started, "well, I like adventure books. Preferably ones that don't perso...

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The Library Of People

Submitted to Contest #142

Under the ‘Ask a Librarian!‘ sign, Emily smiles warmly to Elgin. “We bring them to you,  I understand your confusion, but we are not that kind of Library, trust me.  I am your Librarian and I will find just the right Book for you.”  Several strands of her frizzy black hair pop out of her bun, and the pen behind her ear moves along with her understanding nod. She points to a chair,  “Please sit down.  Tell me what you are looking for?”  Unclear on how his simple question, ‘where are the books?’ has not been ...

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The Magical Librarian of Madison

Submitted to Contest #142

Jacob Sullivan huddled up against the shelves, the dark metal digging into his backbone as he rested his head and exhaled for the first time in the past hour. He only dared to close his eyes as the familiar smell of old pages sent the message to his brain that he was safe, concealed amongst the fiction section in Madison Public Library. The ceiling tiles, he noticed, were a strange and pockmarked pasty color; not quite white, not quite gray, and several badly in need of repair. If he wanted, he could use the marks to count the minutes until ...

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Necromancy For Beginners

Submitted to Contest #142

“For matters such as these, I would personally recommend ‘A Beginners’ Guide to Necromancy. Very easy to follow. Great results.” The old woman held out a large, very old looking, book. The black leather cover was cracked in so many places that it rendered the title almost unreadable; the yellowed pages curled around the edges. Mallory stared hard at the old woman and at the large book, not sure whether to accept it. She wanted this to work, but she was still cautious. After all, she was 8 now; she had to act grown up. “How do I know you are...

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Don’t Judge a Life by its Cover

Submitted to Contest #142

“May I recommend J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye?” said an older gentleman who had walked up next to me while I was standing in front of the shelves of classic literature at the local library. I looked over at the man who reminded me of an old 1970’s mobster; dressed in a blue suede jacket, with tan slacks and on his feet, white Ian Drummond dress shoes. His suit is complete with a light blue flat cap like golfers wear. Large gold-trimmed glasses were black as night but prescription lenses over his eyes. Even behind the gray hairs flo...

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