Like most authors, my goal is to write stories that resonate with young readers and adult readers alike.

In the case of Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness, I hoped that kids would be inspired when they learned about how one person (and one horse) can make a profound difference. And about how a simple act of kindness can spread far and wide.

What I didn’t expect were the many ways that the message would come back to me since the book’s release, like a kindness boomerang whirring across the country. This week, a lovely gift greeted me when I retrieved my mail. A 40-page handmade book full of kids’ watercolor artwork and words inspired by the kindness theme. I hope you will read the below letter from Mrs. Heckart, a teacher whose third-grade class at Prairie Ridge Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa chooses a random act of kindness to perform each week. Amazing, right?

This time, their act of kindness was directed at me.

How lucky am I?

And how lucky the world is to have educators like Mrs. Heckart who are helping to shape compassionate, thoughtful citizens of the world. Indeed, the world is already a better place because of Mrs. Heckart and her students.

I know that my world is!