Finding Fortune

Reach for this book when your child is grappling with the quiet ache of a parent's military deployment or the stress of a family's financial instability. It is a story designed to offer a sense of agency to children who feel at the mercy of adult circumstances and global events. Ren is a young girl living in the shadow of her father's absence in Afghanistan, while simultaneously navigating her family's move to a struggling Iowa town. As she discovers the history of the town's shell-button industry, she finds a way to stitch her community together. It is an ideal pick for ages 8 to 12, balancing realistic anxieties with a hopeful, historical mystery that reminds children that even small hands can change a family's fortune.