S E Burr

The Everything Puzzle S E Burr

Abbey loves puzzles. She loves small puzzles with big pieces, like her famous-physicist-with-crazy-hair puzzle; giant puzzles with giant pieces, like her Eiffel-Tower-too-tall-for-the-table puzzle; little puzzles with little pieces, like her curious-kittens-caught-in-yarn puzzle; and even enormous puzzles with tiny pieces, like The Everything Puzzle. Its itty-bitty pieces come in every shape Abbey can imagine and every color she knows the name for, along with a few she doesn't. It's a really tough puzzle, and that's okay because Abbey's a really tough girl. When Abbey gets a new puzzle, all the pieces are in a cardboard box, and the box is wrapped in plastic to keep them in. After she opens the box, the pieces are free to go exploring, and then she finds them on the colorful-curlicues-kitchen floor, in the bright-red-circus-animals toy chest, and under the just-a-little-raggedy couch cushions. The Everything Puzzle is old and has lost its box. The puzzle pieces are EVERYWHERE. Abbey finds them at school when her teacher teaches about math and reading, and about science and art. She finds them in the car when Dad answers her questions about why moms don't have beards, and dogs don't like lettuce, and it's OK when people disagree. She finds them in bed when Mom reads her bedtime stories like "The Little Red Hen," and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," and "Little Bunny Foo Foo." One day, Abbey finds a piece of The Everything Puzzle that doesn't seem to fit. It doesn't connect with any of the old pieces, not the orange-Swiss-cheese-moon shaped piece, or the blue-giraffe-with-two-necks shaped piece, or the pink-half-a-pair-of-galoshes piece. But that's okay; she sets the new piece on the paint-spotted-glitter-speckled craft table beside the others. As Abbey grows, she'll find more pieces--a shamrock green piece from a special trip, a lacey white piece from a special day, and a black and blue piece from a decision that will seem impossible until she makes it. Someday she'll see how all the pieces fit together. She'll see the big picture that the pieces make, and find that it's more enormous and beautiful than she ever imagined.