The Memory String
By Eve Bunting; Ted Rand (Illustrator)
(Clarion Books, Library Binding, 9780395861462, 40pp.)
Publication Date: August 2000
Categories: Family - Stepfamilies, Social Issues - Death & Dying
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Each button on Laura’s memory string represents a piece of her family history. The buttons Laura cherishes the most belonged to her mother—a button from her prom dress, a white one off her wedding dress, and a single small button from the nightgown she was wearing on the day she died. When the string breaks, Laura’s new stepmother, Jane, is there to comfort Laura and search for a missing button, just as Laura’s mother would have done. But it’s not the same—Jane isn’t Mom. In Eve Bunting’s moving story, beautifully illustrated by Ted Rand, Laura discovers that a memory string is not just for remembering the past: it’s also for recording new memories.
EVE BUNTING has written over two hundred books for children, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz. She lives in Southern California.
Bunting has found an original way to tell an old story about making room for new memories.
Kirkus Reviews
"the story offers a hopeful beginning and invites readers to think about ways to remember family history" School Library Journal
"The earnestness...is balanced with tenderness, and Rand's realistic artwork concentrates on the faces of the family and the emotions that cross them." Booklist, ALA
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