Today I ran across one of my favorite book quotes of all time. It has stuck with me through the years and I can almost quote it verbatim. It is a beautiful paragraph. It contains the innocence of a child, a celebration of differences, and at the same time, a hopeful promise of unity.

From Jerry Spinelli’s MANIAC MAGEE…

“Maniac loved the colors of the East End, the people colors. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure why these East Enders called themselves black. He kept looking and looking, and the colors he found were gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange. But never licorice, which to him, was real black.”