An Easter Book Quiz

Good, bad, sad, ugly, funny, reverent.  (Sorry I've only come up with six so far...I may add to this one later on.)  Name the book, the author, or both.  Happy Easter! Answers are here.

1.  There were two late breakfasts at the M home that noon.  One in the dining room with a color scheme of yellow jonquils and lavender candles; even the broiled grapefruit fitted into it.  That was Nonna's breakfast.  The other was out under the weeping willow in the back yard, with the warmest sun April could manage out in full force after the rain.  And the color scheme of this breakfast was as reckless as nature itself.  For, as fast as the children found their baskets of colored eggs, they ran to the table with them....Nonna's broiled chicken and dollar-sized biscuits monopolized the kitchen range.  The outdoor breakfast party ate yesterday's bran muffins with the bacon and drank cocoa.

2.  "Maybe I'll just give up acting and design hats when I grow up," said M, with pins in her mouth.  "Honestly, R, look at us; don't we look fashionable?"  "Uh-hunh, pretty sharp," said R with mild enthusiasm; he hardly seemed to see the hats at all.  But when, in all their finery, they went out to get into the Motor to go to church, the first thing they saw was Lorna Doone, the horse, greedily cropping crocuses on the front lawn, and on her head she, too, was wearing a new bonnet: a dashing creation made up of a feather duster, some paper roses, and family toothbrushes arranged in a cockade, all tastefully held in place with adhesive tape and the cord from somebody's pajamas.

3.  Emma had given up Little Debbies for Lent three years ago, a sacrifice he deeply appreciated. Being in the same room with a Little Debbie of any variety was more temptation than he could handle.

4.  Business was good that Easter, even though, at the insistence of Matzerath, who was Protestant, the shop had to be closed on Good Friday.  Mama, who generally had her way in most matters, gave in on Good Fridays and closed the shop, demanding in return the right on Catholic grounds to close the shop for Corpus Christi, to replace the boxes of Persil and display packages of Kaffee-Hag in the window with a small, colorful picture of Mary, illuminated with electric lights, and to take part in the procession in Oliva.

5.  I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags.

The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the people.... The world was lighted by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's egg, others tiny as hempseed.... They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air was warm and still.... Here and there, far away on the further bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were gleaming....

6.  Ellie and Brenda were already fighting about what they were going to wear to church.  Since Momma got mad at the preacher three years back, Easter was the only time in the year that the Aarons went to church and it was a big deal....Ellie said she would go to chuirch if Momma would let her wear the see-through blouse, and Brenda would go if she at least got a new skirt.  In the end everyone got something new except Jess and his dad, neither of whom cared...