The Memory String

The Memory String by Eve Bunting is such a sweet story.  It is the story of a little girl named Laura whose mother passed away a few years ago.  Her father recently remarried and Laura is adjusting to life with her stepmother.  To hold on to her deceased mother, Laura shares the buttons on her memory string with her cat.  But her cat breaks the string and the buttons spread all across the yard.  Laura's stepmother knows how important the memory string is to Laura and helps her find all the missing pieces.

I love when books share stories about social issues.  For some reason it is always easier to hold a conversation with your child when you have a story as a springboard.  This is a good book to share with all children because it teaches empathy; however it is a great book to share with children who have recently lost a parent or have parents who have divorced and remarried.  The Memory String naturally lends itself to text-to-self connections. Children cannot only connect to the events of the story, but they can also connect to the emotions.  This is also a good story for creating inferences.  The author does not state how each of the characters are feeling throughout the story.  The reader has to infer the characters feelings based upon the text's clues and their own background knowledge. 

You will naturally come up with questions and comments to share with your child as you read this book, so I am only going to post a few to get your thinking conversation started.

1. Read to the end of page 7.  Ask your child:  Why do you think Laura pulls our her string a lot in front of her stepmother?


2.  Read to the end of page 12.  Ask your child:  Laura seems pretty sad.  Why do you think it hurts her to see her Dad and Jane happy?  


3.  Read to the end of page 14.  Ask your child:  Why do you think the memory string is so important to Laura?  Do you have something that is important to you?


4.  Read to the end of page 18.  Ask your child:  How do you think Laura feels?  How do you think Jane  feels?  What about her Dad?


5. Read to the end of page 25. Ask your child:   What might Laura be feeling when she hears Jane talk about the missing button?


6.  Read to the end of page 31.  Ask your child:  What might Laura have to think about?

7.  Read to the end of page 31.  Ask your child:  How do you think Laura feels at the end of the story?  How do you think Jane feels?

A great extension to this book would be to start your own memory string.  What would you collect?