Glenda Millard Quotes

Instead of being stories of hope for children, I suspect their massive appeal lies in the fact they are really wildly-nostalgic stories for adults about how broken childhoods (and sometimes even broken adulthoods) should have been.

Each story speaks wholeness and healing and wonder to the soul. I needed several tissues in each story to wipe away the tears: whether it was over Griffin’s misunderstanding that his baby sister had gone away because he didn’t love her enough or Perry’s mute solitude as he strives to understand why his mother would leave him in a suitcase stolen from a thrift shop and go to heaven without him.

Tender and lyrical prose, gentle and almost achingly poignant moments and a golden daffy-down-dilly air pervading the stories: make sure you grab your tissue box before reading the Kingdom of Silk series.

Griffin Silk is an uncommon sort of boy, from an uncommon sort of family. The warm, loving home he shares with his father, grandmother and five big sisters (The Rainbow Girls) is marked by the aching absence of his mother and baby sister

Where have they gone and will they be coming home again? When Griffin starts school and meets Princess Layla the answers to his questions gently start to unfold.

This wonderful story expresses through words that people can recover from painful comings and goings as long as they have the help of their friends and family and other loved ones.

This is a touching narrative about a family whose surname is “Silk”. In that family, the little boy in the family, Griffin Silk, has troubles at school with bullies until a girl named Layla comes along. Then, he finds out his baby sister being born, and he is named “Tishkin Silk”, hence the name of this story.

Griffin, the main character, comes from a magical family. He was named after a mythical beast, afterall. The story opens with him going to school for the first time ever. He’s not fitting in so well and it’s really hard because all of his other siblings are attending upper school. He’s alone and way misunderstood.

Glenda writes with such gentleness, with intricate attention to the things that really matter, and captures wisps of beauty from the world and its inhabitants, weaves them into a warm tapestry and lays this on the page with such a feather touch. When I first read this book, I just sobbed and sobbed. The sadness is as beautiful as the happiness and hope.

The Silk family are large and attuned to each other and the world around them. They live on the fringe a little, love to dress up, embrace imagination and surround themselves with animals and love. Narrated by 8 yr old Griffin this sad, but celebratory, tale is an exceptional read.