Books like Love in the Library
By Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Some picture books explain history; this one lets a child feel how love and beauty can survive even in an unjust prison camp. Tender, quiet, aching, ultimately hopeful.
A celebration of moms in all their forms shows the everyday moments that make them amazing — reading stories, making us laugh, and snuggling us close when we're sad.
A little girl named Little Miss plants a kiss in the ground, then tends and believes in it as it grows into something far bigger than she imagined.
A picture book biography of the Persian poet Rumi, following him from a boy enchanted by birds and books to a scholar whose grief over losing his best friend Shams led him to his greatest teaching: that love is in us and everywhere.
A poem-portrait of one family — brown-skinned mama, white-skinned daddy, and their two children — celebrates every skin tone between them as simply, joyfully theirs.
A tree loves a boy so completely that she gives him her apples, her branches, and finally her trunk, asking nothing in return as he grows old.
A father speaks love to his child from day one — through truth, comfort, joy, and pride — guiding them through monsters both imaginary and real, and toward a better world.
A poor washerwoman on the island of Martinique uses her mother's magic wand to help her beloved goddaughter Cendrillon win the heart of a rich man's son.
A king adopts a family of orphans, who each try to win his approval with gifts and displays of talent — until one simply chooses to spend time with him instead.
A girl named Chloe and her friends refuse to let a new classmate named Maya join their games, until a lesson about kindness leaves Chloe facing what she lost by turning away.
During the Syrian Civil War, an ambulance driver stays behind in Aleppo when his neighbors flee, and finds himself feeding and comforting the many cats they left behind.
A boy named Dat starts school in a new country where every word sounds like gibberish, until a classmate finds another way to reach him besides talking.
In a busy city where everyone rushes past, a boy named Will notices an injured bird on the ground and, with his mother's help, gently carries it home to care for it.
