Over the weekend, my family gathered at my parents’ house to celebrate my 28th birthday.

The family definitely knows me well and had the gifts to prove it: four boxes of banana-flavored Little Debbie Marshmallow Pies, newspaper-print Converse shoes, a birthday card from the husband featuring a stack of books that says, “Every love story is beautiful but ours is my favorite.”

(Never mind that it’s a Sweetest Day card, and he scratched out Happy Sweetest Day to say Happy Birthday — that just makes it more perfect.)

The best items handed to me, though, were two sheets of notebook paper bearing letters handwritten in pencil.

Sarah and Katy (my nieces, for whom I wrote SARAH & KATY AND THE IMAGINATION BLANKETS) wanted to give me thank-you notes for their Christmas gifts, which included a copy of the book and a blanket for each girl.

Their letters read:

Thank you for the imagination blankets! You were right about them being magic! And so me and Katy decided that we should go and go somewhere. And they worked! So then we went to the dessert and saw Bast! Oh, and by the way Ruddy came to! So did Dragon and Piggy. Well, when we went to Katarah anyway. We also went to the North Pole! Brrrrrr! At least we brought blankets, right? And best of all we saw Santa Claus! Oh, and by the way we will open your presents last next Christmas Eve because we know there will be something special inside it. Bye!

From Sarah

and:

Thank you for the Imagination Blankets. Gusse what, we went in space, and we also saw Bast again. We also went to the dessert. Oh, we also brought Piggy and Dragon with us oh, we we also went to Katarah. And we went to the North Pole! Brrrrrrrrrrr! At least we brought blankets. Right? But at least we had each other! Bye

From Katy

No fan mail or review can beat that. The story is in their hands now — I can’t wait to hear where there imagination blankets take them next.