My email ends up on lots of mailing lists (does anyone else delete a ton of messages every day?). One message I’m always happy to see is from Sarah Mackenzie, founder of The Read-Aloud Revival.

Mackenzie homeschools her children, and is a huge proponent of books and reading out loud no matter the age of your kids. What I love most is her book recommendations.

In her recent email, I read about “The One-in-a-Million Boy” by Monica Wood. It sounded good, so I requested it from the Baker County Public Library (shout out to the inter-library loan system that enables us to borrow books from all over Oregon).

When my kids read the inside cover of the book, they both had the same reaction: “That sounds really sad, Mom.”

The boy of the title dies before the book even starts. So yes, it sounded like a sad story. But the book goes back and forth in time, so we get to know the boy through flashbacks. (Although we never do learn his name.)

The premise is this: The boy is paired with 104-year-old Ona. He fills her bird feeders and does little chores around the house. But mostly, he listens. She agrees to help him with a school history project and sits down with him and a recorder.

These are my favorite chapters. It is written as a one-sided conversation with Ona talking and responding to his questions, but we don’t ever “hear” his voice because he pauses the recorder. We also find out he’s obsessed with Guinness World Records, and he tries to convince Ona to go for one (the oldest living person is a long shot, but the oldest licensed driver is not). Every several chapters we are treated to a list of Guinness records. It’s always, in my opinion, fascinating what people will do to qualify for a world record.

One day the boy doesn’t show up. Instead, his father — who has been absent most of the boy’s 11 years of life — arrives to finish the boy’s Saturday commitment to helping Ona. She is suspicious at first, especially when he’s not up-front about the boy. It isn’t until she reads the newspaper that she learns about his death.

Although the boy is not an active character in the story, his influence on the others is woven throughout the pages. I especially loved Ona, who is equal parts cantankerous and caring — especially when interacting with the boy’s parents.

This is a story about finding friends in unlikely places, acts of kindness, and how one boy’s love brought strangers together to weather the heartbreak.

(To find Mackenzie’s book lists for all ages, go to www.readaloudrevival.com.)