Are you a collector? Are your bookshelves loaded with Hummels, tiny spoons, Franklin Mint commemorative plates? No? Me neither. Nothing makes me shudder more than a marathon episode of Hoarders. Not even books clutter my shelves.

The reason? Every book I’ve ever bought has sprung a pair of legs and walked off to my girlfriends’ houses. The only books that stick around are the ones I didn’t like. And they only leave by force, like reluctant children off to camp.

But there’s an exception to every rule.

There is one book that I’ve loved for thirty-five years and is never allowed to leave. Its binding is loose. Its pages, soft and limp. There is a purple crayon scribble on page seven. I can recite every line by heart, and I weep as I turn the last page.

My grandfather gave me MISS TWIGGLEY’S TREE in 1974 when I was a little girl. It wasn’t my birthday. It wasn’t Christmas. He gave it to me on a Tuesday in June after Grandma finished washing my hands with Ivory soap. He said it was just because he loved me.

It is all I have left of him now. I read it to my own children. It does more to tell them about their great-grandfather than any worn photograph ever could, and it’s that lesson that I remember:

Before giving a child a figurine, or a stuffed animal that will only litter a book shelf, I try to find that one special book that will speak to that child.

And when in doubt, I look for that funny Miss Twiggley who lived in a tree “with a dog named Puss and a color t.v.”