North Miami Beach, Florida--"I always lose my gloves! I am in third grade. I always lose them in school on the way home, or on the long walk to Hebrew school. Then I have to go look for them, but wherever I look--under the desks, in the hedges, or on the sidewalks I pass--I never can find them."
So begins Hedy Markowitz's story, THE LOST GLOVE, which she wrote for her grandchildren, Danny, seven, Brianna, four, and Adam, two, who live in Livingston, New Jersey. The story takes place in the 1940s and recounts a trip Hedy took to the Central Park Zoo. Written from an eight-year-old's perspective, Hedy describes her surprise and horror when an elephant plucked her borrowed glove from her hand and ate it: "The elephant backs up in his cage, forms his great gray trunk into a big circle once more, places the little black leather glove in his smiling mouth, and swallows," she writes.
This story about the bold, naughty elephant is one of several that Hedy, 57, and her husband, Arie, 60, have written for their three grandchildren. Sprinkled with details about their childhood in Europe and America during and after World War II, the Markowitzes' stories evoke their own family history but also convey the common experiences of being young--winning an achievement award, fearing the ridicule of fellow first-grade classmates, or being scolded for losing a glove yet again.
Danny, Brianna, and Adam love to read the stories and have taken to asking their mom questions about what it was like when their grandparents were young. Hedy hopes that her grandchildren will gradually learn about their family by reading these stories. "As they get older, maybe they'll get to know me as a person--not just as Grandma--someone who has a life, someone who came from somewhere," Hedy says.
