Books like The Heart and the Bottle
By Oliver Jeffers
For the child who asks endless questions about the stars — and for the parent who wonders how to talk about loss without losing the wonder that came before it. Quiet, tender, and reflective, with a melancholy that turns gentle and hopeful.
A fox and his dog share an inseparable life together until the dog dies, sending the fox into grief so deep he tears apart the garden they once tended, until an unexpected pumpkin vine slowly draws him back into the world.
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 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 discarded robot with a broken heart gives shelter to an exhausted bluebird in the empty space where his heart used to be, and carries her south with the last of his failing strength.
After their father dies, six-year-old Marvel, her seven siblings, and their mother move into a run-down tar-paper shack deep in the Wisconsin woods and slowly turn it into a home.
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 gentle picture book imagines Cat Heaven, where beloved cats run through fields of sweet grass, play with favorite toys, and are cared for by angels who rub their noses and ears.
A little dog named Daisy loves her red ball more than anything — until another dog at the park accidentally pops it, leaving her heartbroken, in a wordless story told entirely through watercolor illustrations.
A four-year-old boy loves visiting his grandmother and great-grandmother, Nana Downstairs and Nana Upstairs, until one day his mother tells him Nana Upstairs won't be there anymore.
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 gentle picture of what heaven holds for dogs — endless fields to run in, fluffy clouds for sleeping, and biscuits no dog can resist.
A lonely little girl finds a star that has fallen out of the sky and becomes its friend, but when the star grows sick, she must decide whether to let it go home.
