Adam Miller:
Kat Howard:
My favorite moment of freedom in a work of fantasy isn't a climactic space battle, or a casting off of a dark lord, or a phoenix resurrecting itself in flame. It's a simple, quiet sentence, said by one dead little boy, Edwin Paine, to another, Charles Rowland, in Chapter Four of Season of Mists (Neil Gaiman, Sandman): "But you don't have to stay anywhere forever." That realization seems to me the epitome of freedom.
Tia Mansouri:
Megan Kurashige:
I can't pick a favorite because I have (first of all) too many books that I enjoy and (secondly) a terrible memory, so I can't make a properly informed selection. I do, however, very much love Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Coraline is such a brave and ordinary girl, terribly smart and carelessly good, and the kind of child I wish I had been.
Jen Miller:
I know it's really corny, but I love the speech that President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) gives in the movie Independence Day: "And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night!' We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!" I love that it alludes to Dylan Thomas' famous villanelle, but even more than that, I love that it envisions the possibility of the 4th of July as a day where the whole world, not just our country, can celebrate freedom together.
Finally, here are the Muppets, showing us what the 4th of July is really all about:
Happy 4th of July, everyone!