The Memory String

by Eve Bunting, Ted Rand (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544555471
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/08/2015
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	203,480
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Eve Bunting was the beloved, award-winning author of more than two hundred and fifty books for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz, The Wall, Fly Away Home, and Train to Somewhere.

The late TED RAND was the esteemed illustrator of many picture books, including Eve Bunting's Secret Place and The Memory String.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

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

Editorial Reviews

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 —

From the Publisher

Resentful of her new stepmother, Laura clings to a family heirloom, a "memory string" of buttons taken from special garments. As her father and her stepmother, Jane, paint the porch, Laura sits apart and fingers each button, loudly telling her cat about her great-grandmother's first "grown-up dress," her father's Gulf War service uniform and, last, the nightgown her mother was wearing when she died. Bunting's (Smoky Night) prose is as sure-footed as ever, but is much encumbered here by a contrived plot that has Laura losing the buttons and the family coming together in the search for them. A rapprochement between Laura and Jane, who finds the final missing button, is all but inevitable. Even Rand's (Baby in a Basket) light-dappled watercolors can't rescue the story from its didactic intent; this is likelier to engage adults looking for books that address a particular subject (such as stepparenting) than children. Ages 5-8. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 3-Within hearing of her new stepmother, Laura meanly recounts to her disinterested cat what each button on her memory string means. There's one from her great-grandmother's first grown-up dress, another from her mother's wedding dress, and one from the nightgown the woman was wearing when she died three years ago. When the impatient feline jumps away, breaking the string, the buttons fly everywhere. Laura's father and Jane help find all but one of them, but the girl is inconsolable. In the night, she hears them debating about whether to cut an identical button from her father's military uniform. Jane insists, "Laura would rather have that button missing than have a replacement-It's like a mother. No substitute allowed." She finds the lost item with a flashlight and she puts it on the porch where Laura can see it without being offended by the finder. However, in the morning the child has had a change of heart and asks Jane's help in restringing the beads. Rand's oversized, light-dappled watercolor pictures show the love and loyalty between the father and his new wife and their love for the prickly and still-grieving Laura. Bunting trusts readers to interpret behavior and understand complex emotions without her having to provide a moral or dramatic ending. Instead, the story offers a hopeful beginning and invites readers to think about ways to remember family history-including making one's own button memory string.-Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Each button on Laura's memory string represents a piece of her family history, but when the string breaks, she must turn to a new stepmother for help. Good reading skills will enhance understanding of Laura's struggles to accept her new stepmother, who is not the same as her deceased mother.

A string of treasured buttons becomes a metaphor for a young girl's struggle to accept her new stepmother in this poignant exploration of love and loss. Laura's memory buttons represent all the stories that have been handed down through generations of family, beginning with her great-grandmother. When her mother died, the memory string became a talisman, ensuring that Laura would remember all the times they shared. Now her father has remarried and Laura uses the memory string as a way of blocking out the presence of her new stepmother, Jane, someone Laura is determined can never take her real mother's place. Yet when the string accidentally breaks and the buttons scatter, it's Jane who searches with a flashlight far into the night until every button is found. Is it possible that there can be room in Laura's life for her stepmother after all? Sun-dappled watercolors capture the feel of a warm summer day and provide a framework for Laura's observation of her father and his new wife as they work together painting the front porch. Close-up illustrations portray Laura's range of emotions, from sadness and petulance to distress and finally tentative friendship. Bunting (Doll baby, see above, etc.) has found an original way to tell an old story about making room for new memories. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews