The story gives a fictionalized account of how the famous children's author, Margaret Wise Brown, was inspired to write Goodnight Moon. It is interspersed with letters between Margaret and June's Aunt Ruby. Ultimately this is an love story to books and bookstores and family. I absolutely loved it...and it also intensified my dream to one day own my own bookstore...maybe that's *my* next chapter.
"Sometimes I think of my life as a great big story. Each silly thing I do is a new paragraph. And each morning I turn to the next chapter...Whenever you're down on your luck, when things aren't going the way you like, remember that you are the author of your own story...it can be a beautiful story or a sad tragic one. You get to pick." (pg 97)
From Booklist
At 35, June Anderson is a hard-charging financier, the youngest vice president ever at her international bank, with her own Manhattan apartment—and an anxiety disorder and dangerously high blood pressure. Then her beloved great-aunt, Ruby Crain, bequeaths to her Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore in Seattle that was an important part of June’s childhood. Skilled at foreclosing on small, failing businesses, June plans to sell the store to a developer. But then she follows a trail of letters hidden in books and learns that Ruby was a dear friend of author Margaret Wise Brown and inspired the longtime best-seller Goodnight Moon. This discovery, along with a budding friendship with the restaurateur next door, makes June vow to fight to keep the financially fragile bookstore. In unwinding a feel-good plot with a certain amount of predictability, Jio also provides some final twists as she reveals family discord in June’s life and long-held secrets in Ruby’s. This eminently readable novel with particular appeal for fans of children’s literature is a tribute to family and forgiveness.
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