“Smell the sea and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly.” –Van Morrison

I took Van the Man’s advice this week. Me and the fam spent the day under a perfect sun, where I’ve nearly finished the Oprah recommended and controversial novel American Dirt. Please say you’ll check back in soon to hear what Rae and I have to say about a book that Stephen King called, “An extraordinary piece of work, a perfect balancing act with terror on one side and love on the other…I defy anyone to read the first seven pages of this book and not finish it.”

But my focus today is on a different new release. When I picked up Dear Edward, I didn’t know Jenna Bush Hager was reading it. Nor did I remember Afriqiyah Airlines Flight 771—the one that crashed on the 12th of May 2010. The one where 104 passengers and crew on board were all killed; only one 9-year-old Dutch boy named Ruben van Assouw was spared. Ann Napolitano admits she obsessed over this real-life tragedy that was ultimately the inspiration for Dear Edward. I appreciated her sensitivity to the sole survivor’s new reality. Emma Donoghue, author of Room, offered this insight: “Dear Edward made me think, nod in recognition, care about its characters, and cry, and you can’t ask more of a novel than that.” I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say we can ask for a bit more. We can ask for an important message that teaches us how to better live. Napolitano hits a high note when she focuses on kindness—when she ultimately reminds readers that we can be connected by invisible threads if we choose to unabashedly practice kindness.

Posted by Tracy