Another incredible recommendation from my 5th grader! 💛 All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey is a beautiful book about the foster care system and identifying the push-pull of what your heart and head needs. And discovering for yourself the difference between hard and impossible things. Quite a line-up for a middle grade book, right?! But this book DELIVERS!
Nice to Meet You
Ruby (who goes by Red) has been in countless homes in the years she’s been in foster care. Her mother is in jail for abusing pills and there wasn’t anyone who could be Red’s guardian as she served her sentence. Ruby’s stories from each foster care home hurts to read. Really. I hold foster care parents to such a high standard and it was very hard for me to read that they didn’t all love on Ruby the way she and other kiddos in the system deserve.
Ruby is moved to the Groove’s house with just over a year left in the foster care system. She’s hoping to simply keep her head down and get through until her mom can scoop her up and they can begin anew. Hard, yes. Impossible, not at all.
How It Should Be
The Groove’s welcome Ruby in and give her so much grace and love. It’s how it should be, truly. But so beautiful to read nonetheless.
Ruby has had to grow up so fast that she simply ‘gets by.’ She doesn’t have friends until her stay at the Groove’s. She hasn’t leaned on anyone since her mom was taken away – because she couldn’t. She hasn’t had a lot of faith in humanity for quite some time. But now, well, now there might be the chance to let her heart open up to this couple. Hard, yes. Impossible, feels like it.
Mom Comes Home
Ruby is thrown for a loop along the way (read the book!). When she has the opportunity to see her mom time and time again, she sees a different side to her. Sure, Ruby knows that things change in life. She knows all about that. But she didn’t think her relationship with her mom would change. She assumed that her mom would be as excited (if not more) to get guardianship back and re-start their life.
But life has some funny ways of not going according to our plans.
Heart Work
There is so much packed in this book. Forgiveness. Grace. Opening yourself up. Change. Finding your voice. Trust. It is such a delightful book that is so needed. Some things are hard, but not impossible. Other things feel impossible, but are not hard. And it takes time and heart work to decide for yourself what the difference between hard and impossible is for you.