Summer is here, and I love encouraging kids to keep a journal, where they’re free to write whatever’s on their mind. Here’s a story of two girls who did just that. Cousins Isabelle and Isabella, ages 10 and 8, decided to write down a secret notebook of “rules” to help keep their younger siblings in line. Their rules included important things like, “Color on paper, not on people” and “Don’t bite the dentist.”

While visiting Walmart earlier in the year, the journal was accidentally dropped in the parking lot and later picked up by a 20-year-old Walmart employee. Although there was no name inside it, the employee knew he had discovered something important, and he went on a mission to find the owners.

Using social media, his plea found its way to the mother of one of the cousins, who recognized her daughter’s journal and claimed it. Then the story of the Walmart-employee-turned-literary-hero got even bigger, was picked up by news media, and ended up being noticed by an editor from Simon & Schuster publishing house on her morning commute in New York.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. En route to an editorial meeting, she brought the story to the attention of her publisher, who worked quickly to contact the authors and offer them a book contract. The hardcover book, Isabelle and Isabella’s Little Book of Rules, will be due out in October.

Here’s a dreams-come-true publishing story worth sharing with your kids. Who knows? Your child’s summer diary may someday end up in the hands of a New York publisher.

Stranger things have happened!