Our Favorite Summer Children’s Book

This summer our favorite children’s book is “The Invisible String,” by Patricia Karst. I wish I could have written it, because it speaks to so many hearts.

Do you know the best part about being a family?

Of course you do.

But it always amazes me, this Invisible String that binds a family together even when they live 1500 miles apart.

We are all vacationing at my son’s “recreational property” (their little farm on the river). The sons, their wives and the five grand-littles. 13 people. (We wish Kim were here, but we all respect her reasons for staying home. The noise of 5 children, the constant activity, and the break in routine would cause so much stress.) The children hadn’t seen each other for 6 months. Yet there were no uncomfortable, fidgeting moments when they first met. That invisible thread traveled the miles between Arizona and Nebraska and bound them together. They simply assumed they all belonged together. And they are right.

So how does this happen? What is it that makes young cousins automatic friends? So close that the fighting begins almost immediately? Because you only fight with family and your closest friends. I’m sure there are scientific studies about this phenomenon, and others can write so much more eloquently about it.

It is simply an amazing marvel to me that I am so grateful for.

Favorite Summer Children’s Book

“The Invisible String” by Patricia Karst

If you don’t have this book in your child’s library, it’s time to order it.

On Father’s Day we gave each of our grown sons, who have their own littles, this children’s book.

Because it’s much more than a book for children.

Grandpa read it to his g’littles several times that day. At their request. They totally grasped the concept. It spoke to their hearts.

Because they feel that invisible thread

that reaches across the miles

when you have to be apart,

and yet magically binds you together permanently.

And, yes, even to Great Grammas and Great Grampas in heaven.

Even the ones they never met, but look forward to knowing one day.

Because children

have enough invisible string

to bind them to loved ones they’ve never even known.