Similes

 

An example of figurative language, similes are a way to compare two unlike things, using like or as.

"He just stood there, and Winn-Dixie came barreling right toward him like he was a bowling ball and the preacher was the only pin left standing, and wham, they both fell to the ground (Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie, 74).

“…and he’s dead. Dead as a squashed June bug…” (Ellen Raskin, The Westing Game, 14).

“I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince, 6).

“Reading provides you with words, like the colors of God’s rainbow, to paint your ideas, to give beauty and variety to your thought” (Avi, Murder at Midnight, 32).

“Dressed entirely in black, Count Scarazoni had a thin, pinched face with dark eyebrows that swept over his angry eyes like a bar of iron” (Avi, Murder at Midnight, 70).

“His house is as void of the religion of Christ as the white of an egg is of flavor” (John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 79).

“Like a chameleon, he changes his color every time he changes his environment” (John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 79).

“The name comes out flat, bitter as a bad pecan” (Kathryn Stockett, The Help, 122).

“Alton was a long, skinny, baby with hair fine as silk corn…” (Kathryn Stockett, The Help, 149).

"His whiskers became as tight as bowstrings" (Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux, 32).

"He started gobbling fried chicken so fast he choked on a bone and died right there on the spot. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a bucket lid" (Paul Brett Johnson, Old Dry Frye). 

"At parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun" (Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, 13).

"I used to bury cotton wisps in my ears, pull the blanket over my head, and still the sounds of Baba's snoring--so much like a growling truck engine--penetrated the walls" (Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, 13).

"His hair, short and brown, stood on his scalp like needles in a pincushion" (Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, 183).  

For more mentor texts, go here.