Family-friendly literature to share with your children

Looking for a great family reading option for your children? Then look no further than this book hand-picked by the Upbeatee review team.

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwicks is an easy, light-hearted and realistic book that looks at the life of four sisters and their heart-warming personalities. The book revolves around the family’s summer adventures which include making new friends and unforgettable memories.

Of the Penderwick books, this is the most laid back option with its easy storyline and flow. There is nothing boring about this book, but rather, Birdsall creates captivating characters whom your entire family will fall in love with. Great news is this is the first book in the series.

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Words to live by for inspiration

Check out these motivational words and famous quotes to explain perfectly the importance of these words, curated by the Upbeatee review team.

Confidence

• "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

—Helen Keller

• "Self-confidence is the memory of success."

—David Storey

• “Without self-confidence, we are as babes in the cradle.”

—Virginia Woolf

Courage

• "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

—Winston Churchill

• “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

—Maya Angelou

• “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”

—Mark Twain

Dare

• "Failures are made only by those who fail to dare, not by those who dare to fail."

—Lester B. Pearson

• "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

—Theodore Roosevelt

• "Dare to dream, but even more importantly, dare to put action behind your dreams."

—Josh Hinds

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Inspirational words on the importance of role models

Role models can be our parents, relatives, friends, teachers, colleagues, and even strangers. But one thing’s for sure. They all shape our lives. Here are some great quotes on role models curated by the Upbeatee review team.

“The most important single influence in the life of a person is another person … who is worthy of emulation.” – Paul D. Shafer

“The whole concept of role models is frightful. You gotta make your own role.” – William S. Burroughs

“What you teach your own children is what you really believe in.” – Cathy Warner Weatherford

“Why are the parents doing such a poor job of bringing up their children? Probably because they didn’t have very effective role models themselves when they were growing up. It could go back generations” – Karl Wiggins

“You’ve got to be careful whom you pattern yourself after because you’re likely to become just like them.” – Rich Mayo

“Polar north can’t get away from a magnet; the magnet finds it, no matter what.” – Jodi Picoult

“When you have lived your individual life in your own adventurous way and then look back upon its course, you will find that you have lived a model human life, after all.” – Joseph Campbell

“In truth, it’s all an act, outside of truth the act is real.” – Jordan G Truth

“You don’t stop dreaming and going after what you want when you have kids, you go harder. It is a lot easier for your kids to listen to you when your actions precede your words. When they see you moving forward and overcoming the various obstacles that come your way.” – Sope Agbelusi

“Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.” – Michelle Obama

“I looked up to my parents because they were very successful in what they wanted to do. I was lucky; I didn’t have to look far for role models.” – Derek Jeter

“Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.” – Bill Bradley

“My parents are my role models. All they’ve done for me, they’re just major people in my life. They’ve stood by me and got me where I am today.” – Keke Palmer

“I was used to being the only woman in everything… I didn’t even think about it. Men were my role models – there’s nothing wrong with that.” – Frances Arnold

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Words to celebrate the joys of travel

Need something to help cheer you up? Take a read through these travel quotes curated by the Upbeatee review team.

Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. – Aldous Huxley

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. – Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in. – D. H. Lawrence

We travel initially to lose ourselves; and we travel next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe where riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and to fall in love once more. – Pico Iyer, Why we Travel

We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. – T. S. Eliot

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. – Jawaharial Nehru

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. – Anatole France

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it. – Richard, ‘The Beach’ (Alex Garland)

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Inspirational quotes to lift your mood today

Here is a great collection of inspirational quotes curated by the Upbeatee review team that will have you feeling great in no time.

“Nothing will work unless you do.” —Maya Angelou

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” —Unknown

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“The difference between try and triumph is a little ‘umph’.” —Unknown

“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.” —Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Don’t count the days, make the days count.” —Muhammad Ali

“Making excuses burns zero calories per hour.” —Unknown

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Classic books to read now

Seems we all have a bit more time on our hands right now, so if reading is your thing, or you want to get into it, here is a handful of books curated by the Upbeatee review team you may want to read now.

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

A Laura Ingalls Wilder Metal winner, E.B. White’s children’s classic about Wilber the pig and his host of barnyard friends from Charlotte the spider to Templeton the rat flings wide the door to imagination and makes us wonder what a world where animals could talk would be like. On a more serious note, it challenges us to ask ourselves how we’d treat animals if they could talk. If they could tell us their joys and their fears, would mankind treat them more humanely? White’s novel is a lesson for children and a reminder for adults of the beauty of nature, the cycle of life, and the importance of remembering that every creature has its place on this earth.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Set in late-20th Century Germany, this novel boldly confronts long-standing German national guilt over the Nazi war crimes of the Holocaust through the strange, intergenerational relationship between 15 year-old Michael Berg and 36 year-old Hannah Schmitt, an illiterate tram operator and former Auschwitz prison guard. As Michael teaches Hannah to read books, Hannah teaches Michael to read the human character, and he comes to learn about the nuances between good and evil and of living with the consequences of one’s choices. The Reader is a story about personal as well as national guilt, about the consequences of keeping secrets, and about the power of redemption.

The End of the Affair by Graham Green

This is another one of those books filled with nuggets of truth that you might cut your teeth on, but that we all need to learn to swallow. The End of the Affair tells the story of the brief but life-altering adulterous relationship between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles. Set in part against the turmoil of World War II, the personal battles of love, hate, guilt, and the search for truth and redemption are all the more poignant. The story of Maurice and Sarah reminds us that the things we do for love can trigger an inexorable pull of fate that carries our lives on a passionate and sometimes perilous journey and that while love doesn’t always last forever, the lessons we learn from it do.

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Funny Health Quotes

Sometimes you need a little humour in your day, and with these one-liners, you will certainly get it, all curated by the Upbeatee review team.

Rule No.37. The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead. Michael Pollan

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. Mark Twain

You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in. Dr. Seuss

The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it. Jackie Gleason

I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself. Johnny Carson

Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate. Charles M. Schulz

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol. Steven Wright

After these two, Dr. Diet and Dr. Quiet, Dr. Merriman is requisite to preserve health. James Howell

Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account. Anne Wilson Schaef

If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. Eubie Blake

Joy and temperance and repose, slam the door on the doctor’s nose. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anybody’s soap is superior to somebody else’s stink killer. Martin H. Fischer

Health is merely the slowest way someone can die. Unknown

To be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness. Though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless. Stefan Sagmeister

First need in the reform of hospital management? That’s easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef. Martin H. Fischer

Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful. Denis Diderot

There’s lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven’t the time to enjoy it. Josh Billings

A bad cold wouldn’t be so annoying if it weren’t for the advice of our friends. Kin Hubbard

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larson

Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair. Dorothy Parker

I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more. Henry Ward Beecher

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