A young woman used the book to let her Mom know she was going to be a grandma for the first time.
If you have read this blog, you know I have published a children’s book titled Eli the Stable Boy. It is a story I told my twenty-year old daughters when they were young. They strongly nudged me to publish it so I did and dedicated it to them. They thought that was pretty cool, but recently I had a woman tell me about how the book was used in her life that made me even more glad I published.
Finding out you are going to be a grandma for the first time. During a family Christmas gathering a woman who knows me was handed a gift box to open. In it, was a copy of the Eli book given to her by her oldest married daughter and son-in-law. She later admitted when she opened the box, she thought to herself it was an interesting gift because she knew me, but she wasn’t overly excited, and did not want to appear unappreciative. So she turned to the front of the book to see if I signed it and she saw these words written: “Grandma, will you read this to me when I get older?”.
It took a moment, but then it hit her. Her daughter was telling her she was pregnant with her first grand child. She immediately dropped the book and started screaming with joy and jumped up to hug her daughter. Now mind you, no one else had read those words and I am sure they thought she was over reacting to getting a kids book for Christmas, but once she stopped her exultation she and her daughter let everyone in on the secret.
OK, I know the royalty on the sale of that one book is not going to change my life, but stories like this one make me glad I invested the time and money to publish. Do you have any stories like this one where you have heard from readers as to how they used your book or how it impacted them. If so, leave them in the comment section and I will post the best ones.
Hi Keith,
I can identify with your pleasure in the way your children’s book was used to convey such a precious bit of family news.
You asked for similar experiences. My novel, The Peace Bridge, is about Hannah, an American grad student who goes to study in Germany in 1972. She happens to be the daughter of German immigrants and her mother is Jewish. Hannah is determined to find out what happened to her family before they immigrated to the States in the thirties.She believes that behind the wall of silence surrounding that time, she will discover the source of her mother’s (and grandmother’s) bouts of depression and may be able to help her.
When a half-Jewish reader who was raised in Germany after WWII read my book, she wrote me to say she identified completely with Hannah. And when she’d finished reading it (almost non-stop in two days), she felt bereft that the story had come to an end.
I was deeply moved by her comments and grateful that I’d succeeded in getting the story right. Not being Jewish, I’d had to work very hard to do that.
What a great example of how publishing a book allows you to impact people you have never met in a place you have never been. Thanks for sharing your story.
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