Boys will be Joys

After my first book, The Fun We Will Have, and my second book, Socks on a Walk, I published Grandma’s Hat. It was probably the easiest book I’ve written and came together very naturally.

This story had been rolling around in my mind for quite some time. It all started when my granddaughter was in my bedroom with me and grabbed a hat that was sitting nearby.

“That hat is almost as old as your dad,” I said.

That comment made me start recalling all the events that hat had been there for. My sister-in-law gave me that hat as a gift over 20 years ago. She knew I liked to wear hats, but I was always self-conscious about my ears because most hats made them stick out even more. This was the first hat that fit me correctly without putting my ears on display. It is literally older than my youngest son. Hands down, it’s my favorite hat—though it definitely looks like it’s been through a lot.

I have pictures of that hat with me on mission trips and on vacations. There are ingrained sweat marks from working hard on our enormous landscaping project—the same one that resulted in my broken thumb. The thought of ever throwing that hat away is simply not an option.

Then it occurred to me that I could write all of this down so my grandkids would know why I saved a dingy old hat for so many years.

I struggled for a bit to figure out how to bring the story full circle—how to explain why that hat was so special in a way that included a lesson for kids. Then I realized that the lesson isn’t always for children. Sometimes, the lesson is for adults.

So, in this story, the child becomes the teacher, and the adult realizes that receiving something new doesn’t mean the old is bad. Just like when we welcome new people into our lives, we don’t replace what we already have—we simply expand our capacity for love.

That’s the heart of Grandma’s Hat.
It’s a gentle story about memories, meaning, and the things we hold onto—not because they’re perfect, but because they’re part of our story. If you’ve ever struggled to let go of something old while making room for something new, I hope this book feels like a quiet reminder that both can belong.