On the next shelf are paint bottles and stacks of paper, everything from thick watercolor paper to flimsy sheets of jewel-colored tissue paper. And lots of things I’ve collected: shells, rocks, a tiny glass elephant, a blackened old skeleton key my grandmother found in a chest but which unlocks nothing. I kept it because I like how it feels in my hand, the heart shape of the top and the jagged teeth at the bottom, and because—Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Middle Grade Carousel 