Speaking of Really Great Books

Speaking of creating really great books, here's some fun material.

Every year, English teachers from across the country submit their most amusing similes and metaphors gleaned from high school essays. Here are some of the winners from 2007:

• He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

• She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

• Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

• Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

• The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

• It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

• He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.