The Key to Finding Jack centres on Jack, a teenage boy who goes missing during an earthquake in Peru where he has been travelling on his gap year. His parents are frantic with worry, and his little sister Flick is distraught. Desperate to be somehow closer to her brother, she spends time in his bedroom, where she comes across a key which he used to wear around his neck. Next to it is a note with the words ‘For S.F. to keep until I’m back.’ Flick decides to focus her efforts on discovering who the mysterious intended owner is and draws up a list of all of the people Jack knew with those initials. Her search leads her to speak to a range of different people, many of whom she’d never met before. Each S.F. tells her something about Jack that she didn’t know and Flick begins to realise that the image which she had of her brother is quite different from reality. She’s particularly amazed to hear about the random acts of kindness that Jack appears to be known for, including supporting an elderly man being mugged, offering free help to a shop owner in a moment of need, and organising a job interview for a young, homeless girl. I was motivated to write about this element of Jack’s personality, because of the random acts of kindness in my own life and those of my friends, realising the important part that they might play in changing someone’s day. Shortly after my twins were born almost three years ago, we lived in a second floor flat with no lift, and my husband would be at work every day. My new next door neighbour who worked from home saw me struggling down the stairs with two babies and a pram, and insisted that I should knock on her door whenever I needed to go out. If she was home, she would take one baby and carry her down the stairs for me – no trouble. A friend who had been unemployed for a while and had been shortlisted for a job she was really keen on, spilled coffee down her front on the way to the interview. She was close to tears, when an older lady on the tube offered her a pashmina to cover it up with. ‘I don’t need it, and it might make a difference to you,’ she said. It certainly did, as it gave my friend some much-needed confidence and helped her relax. She got the job too! More recently, it’s been amazing to see random acts of kindness during the COVID-pandemic. A friend who lives alone and was in quarantine due to having an underlying health condition, was brought food by his next door neighbour every other day for two months. They had a friendly chat on the doorstep and have since become good friends. These actions often take very little effort on the part of the giver, and have a huge impact on the person on the receiving end – an impact that shouldn’t be underestimated. I hope I’ve successfully shown that in The Key to Finding Jack and that I might inspire some readers to spread kindness wherever they go.
If you’d like to read my (glowing!) review for this, you can do that here: https://goldenbooksgirl.wordpress.com/2020/07/18/reviews-amazing-adventures/Have you read this book/are you planning to? What’s your favourite random act of kindness you’ve ever seen someone do, or done yourself? I’d love to hear in the comments! Amy x
Golden Books Girl 
Such a positive post, great hearing about all those RAOKs!
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I loved reading it too when it landed in my inbox! X
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