"I thought I knew what An Invisible Thread was going to be. I thought it would be a simple and hopeful story about a woman who saved a boy. I was wrong. It's a complex and unswervingly honest story about a woman and a boy who saved each other. By its raw honesty and lack of excess sentimentality, it is even more inspirational. This is a book capable of restoring our faith in each other and in the very idea that maybe everything is going to be okay after all."
Description
This 10th anniversary edition of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller includes a new introduction and afterword by the author. Chronicling the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy that began with one small gesture of kindness, this is a “ray of hope for a better future, as well as an assurance that love is a stronger force than injustice and inequality” (Sybrina Fulton, mother of Travyon Martin and coauthor of Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin).
Stopping was never part of the plan...
She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless, eleven-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades.
Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.
Now with new material that brings the life-changing story up to date for its tenth anniversary, An Invisible Thread is “a book capable of restoring our faith in each other and in the very idea that maybe everything is going to be okay after all” (Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward).
Reviews
"An Invisible Thread—a remarkable story, told so beautifully and honestly—shows us what's possible when we are not afraid to connect with another human being and tap into our compassion. It is a story about the power each of us has to elevate someone else's life and how our own life is enriched in the process. This special book reminds us that damaging cycles can be broken and not to neglect the humanity of the strangers we brush up against every day."
"A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York . . . For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter."
"According to an old Chinese proverb, there's an invisible thread that connects two people who are destined to meet and influence each other's lives. . . . As Schroff relates Maurice's story, she tells of her own father's alcoholism and abuse, and readers see how desperately these two need each other in this feel-good story about the far-reaching benefits of kindness."