Books like Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs
By Tomie dePaola
For the child who's never had to say goodbye to someone they love, this is a gentle way to sit with that feeling before real life asks them to. Tender, quiet, honest about loss without being heavy.
Two children upset about being apart from their mother learn that everyone who loves each other is connected by an Invisible String made of love, one that stretches any distance and never breaks.
A quiet meditation on the everyday moments — love and loss, hope and joy, wonder and mystery — that thread through every single life, shown through glowing art and spare text.
A boy named Eli grows up on his grandparents' farm, learning to love the barn, the fields, and the river that surround him — then shares those same places with his baby sister, Sylvie.
On a quiet rainy morning while Papa and Luca sleep, a little girl follows her mama through their cinnamon-scented house, wanting to be wherever Mama is.
A boy tags along for a Friday night shift at the school where his dad works as a custodian, shooting baskets in the half-lit gym and sweeping the stage while the rest of the city sleeps.
An elderly Plains Indian woman dies and journeys into the afterlife her people believe in, while her family carries out the customs of preparing her body and saying goodbye.
A gallery of animal families — ducks, pandas, hippos, tigers, and more — appears in framed portraits, each one showing a different way to be a family, from two moms to a kid with just a pet plant.
A little boy returns to the lake with his older brother for the first summer without their father, working up the courage to dive from the tall rock they used to jump from together.
A gentle retelling of the Nativity story, set among barn animals who witness a quiet, extraordinary birth on a cold night.
When a crocodile egg rolls into her nest, Mother Duck simply hatches it with the rest and raises the little crocodile as one of her own ducklings.
An immigrant family stitches a quilt from old clothing to remember home in Russia, and for four generations that same quilt is passed from mother to daughter through weddings, Sabbaths, and births.
A gentle tour through nature at dusk, as mother animals — owl, fox, whale, and more — each tell their babies just how deep and boundless their love runs.
