Any good children's book needs to have a memorable moral, and The Vanishing Doorknob by L. M. Haynes certainly does not disappoint. The doorknob of a family's home seems to physically vanish, slowly, as the owner becomes more secluded, not answering his door to the repeated requests of fellow townspeople, as depression sets into his life.
The scene is set on the edge of a New England town called Coventry. The Grayson family's home was a beautiful home, adorned with a loving multi-generational family of love, faith and happiness for so many years. But as misfortune began to overtake the grandparents and parents of Kyle Grayson, with untimely deaths, he felt alone and unwilling to venture out of his house, sequestering himself in his own isolation.
He was repeatably visited by all sorts of people; trick-or-treaters on Halloween, gifts of food for Thanksgiving, Christmas carolers during the holiday season, Easter egg gifts of bakery items in the spring, and even the town Clergy came by to check up on him, to no avail. As a final attempt to try everything, the local dogs, with their cute and loving faces, could not lure Kyle to come outside. He would occasionally peek through the window, but he would not answer his front door. Hence the doorknob began to ultimately vanish.
It came to a point in which Kyle said a prayer to the Lord. "Dear Lord," he would pray, "please remove all bitterness and anger from my heart and replace it with the joy I knew as a child. The people of this town have been so kind to me. I want so very much to repay their kindness." Soon his prayer was answered. A heavenly angel knocked on his door; ultimately Kyle opened the door and vowed never to turn people away again.
The author uses a perfectly matched sequence of artistic drawings to help convey the story, making this a well-balanced book to be read to younger ones, perhaps as an ideal bedtime story. The morals include the loss of family members, the moving away of sisters to begin their own lives in other towns, and the foolishness of being isolated. Plus, the main theme is that prayers to the Lord will be answered, and the love of people will prevail over loneliness.
Readers will gain the thoughtfulness and kindness L.M. Haynes has written into the text of this book. The Vanishing Doorknob will be remembered long into the readers' lives, and never will their faith in God be vanishing from their hearts.
