Bonds of Friendship

The other day, I came across this handmade "Friendship Bond" at my mom's house. It belonged to her mother, and I'm guessing dates to the mid 1920's, before my grandmother's death and the stock market crash that depleted their rather large fortune.

Unlike the financial market, these were the kind of bonds that withstood the volatility of greed. Each bond has the photo of a friend with these words:

Bonds of Friendship
Callable whenever needed
Interest--personal
It is hereby certified that the within bond may always be depended upon under any circumstances by the holder.

The bonds were stored with a 1926 Harper's Monthly Magazine article  by Albert J. Nock called "The Decline of Conversation." It laments the loss of civilized society in a nation that values expansion (more money, higher status, accumulation of things) without a balance of intellect, art, beauty (not the marketable kind) and morals.

Why am I posting this on a blog related to children's literature? Because the art of storytelling is the one glimmer of hope I hold for the future. Like the Bonds of Friendship, stories put stock in the value of humanity.

Great Friendship Books for 2011:

Bird in a Box, by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Hound Dog True, by Linda Urban
The Friendship Doll, by Kirby Larson
The Luck of the Buttons, by Anne Ylvisaker
Wild Wings, by Gill Lewis
With a Name Like Love, by Tess Hilmo