Hurricane Wolf by Diane Paterson
32 p., Whitman, 2006. A hurricane is scary, but with help from their parents, children can cope. Noah copes with a hurricane by drawing, verbalizing his feelings (likening the hurricane to a big, bad...
View ArticleWe Belong Together: A Book About Adoption and Families by Todd Parr
32 p., Little, Brown, 2007. There are so many reasons that families belong together. This story names some of them, from “you needed a home and I had one to share,” to “you needed someone to say ‘I...
View ArticleThe School Is Not White! by Doreen Rappaport
Illustrated by Curtis James.40 p., Jump At The Sun, 2005. Although the United States Supreme Court declared school segregation illegal in 1954, it still existed in the South in 1965. This book tells...
View ArticleGood-Bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong by Frances Park and Ginger Park
Illustrated by Yangsook Choi.32 p., National Geographic Society, 2002. It's hard to say goodbye when you move to another country. Jangmi doesn't want to move from Korea to the United States. She'll...
View ArticleAnd Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Illustrated by Henry Cole.32 p., Simon & Shuster, 2005. Children in two-father families may feel that their family is "different." In the context of describing the animal families at the Central...
View ArticleMona: The Monster Girl by Moritz Petz
Translated by J. Alison James. Illustrated by Maja Dusíková. 32 p., North-South, 2004. When you're a monster, you might be afraid of the children that could be hiding under the bed. Such is the case...
View ArticleLet's Talk About It: Extraordinary Friends by Fred Rogers
Illustrated by Jim Judkis.32 p., Penguin Putnam, 2000. When encountering a person with a disability is new to you, you might feel curious, surprised, or even scared. Mr. Rogers acknowledges all these...
View ArticleThe Enchanted Wood by Ruth Sanderson
32 p., Little, Brown+, 19991. Resolution of grief can be a difficult journey. In this original fairy tale, when the queen dies, the king's grief is so vast that the entire land experiences years of...
View ArticleNot A Box by Andrea Portis
32 p., HarperCollins, 2007. With imagination, a box can be almost anything. In this story, an unseen character who doesn't understand this questions a little rabbit, who is making believe the box is a...
View ArticleMommy in My Pocket by Carol Hunt Senderak
Illustrated by Hiroe Nakata.32 p., Hyperion, 2006. When children go to school, they might miss their parents. In this sweet story, a little bunny imagines that she'll miss her Mommy when school starts....
View ArticleI Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak
Illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church. 24p., Scholastic, 2005. Here's a rhyming story that communicates being fully loved. The narrator loves everything about the character, inside and out, in all his...
View ArticleAnna's Corn by Barbara Santucci
Illustrated by Lloyd Bloom. 32 p., Eerdmans, 2002. Shared experience can be both a metaphor for loss and a way to move through the loss. in this story, set in the context of a farming family, Anna's...
View ArticleThe Deaf Musicians by Pete Seeger and Paul DuBois Jacobs
Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 32 p., Putnam, 2006. Sometimes our assumptions about disabilities turn out to be inaccurate. Such is the case for Lee, a jazz pianist who loses his hearing. The band...
View ArticleBegin at the Beginning by Amy Schwartz
34 p., HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen, 2005. When you expect too much of yourself, it's hard to do anything at all. Sara learns this when she's assigned to paint a picture on behalf of her class. She's...
View ArticleLittle Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Illustrated by Jen Corace. 32 p., Chronicle, 2005. Being fussy about what you eat can be a matter of perspective. Little Pea is a happy little pea who likes to play with his friends, roughhouse with...
View ArticleIsh by Peter H. Reynolds
32 p., Candlewick, 2004. Criticism by others can lead to painful self-criticism and shutting down. Ramon loves to draw, but when his brother laughs at him, and hints that his drawings don't look like...
View ArticleMy Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits
Illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska. 32 p., Farrar/Frances Foster, 2003. When children move to a new country, they may feel alone and estranged. Yoon's family moves to the United States from Korea. Her...
View ArticleA Box of Friends by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Illustrated by Mary Whyte. 32 p., McGraw Hill/Gingham Dog, 2003. When you move to a new home, you might think you have no friends there. Annie feels so alone at her new house that she wants to go back...
View ArticleWon't You Be My Hugaroo? by Joanne Ryder
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. 36 p., Harcourt, 2006. There are lots of kind of hugs, from twirly hugs and tickle hugs, to cheer-up hugs and calming hugs, to friendly hugs and good-job hugs, to goodbye...
View ArticleThe OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. 40 p., HarperCollins, 2007. In this story, it's OK to be just OK at things. The main character is a stick figure consisting of the letters OK, drawn sideways. The...
View ArticleAlways My Grandpa by Linda Scacco
Illustrated by Nicole Wong. 48 p., Magination, 2007. When someone close to a child has Alzheimer's disease, the child may experience disbelief, worry, confusion, anger, and embarrassment. Such is the...
View ArticleThe Sea Serpent and Me by Dashka Slater
Illustrated by Catia Chien. 38 p., Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Sometimes being a friend means letting go. A little girl finds a beautiful sea serpent in her bathtub. They play together in the bath, and...
View ArticleBig Sister Now: A Story About Me and our New Baby by Annette Sheldon
Illustrated by Karen Maizel. 32 p., Magination, 2006. When there's a new baby at home, you don't get to be the baby any more. At first, Kate doesn't like this. It feels confusing, and she worries that...
View ArticleHealing Stories blog news
"Story of the week" posts have been appearing weekly for over eight years now, since September 2006, when Healing Stories was published. New posts will now be on hiatus for an undetermined time. I may...
View ArticleIn Our Mothers' House by Patricia Polacco
48 p., Philomel, 2009. Narrated in the voice of a little girl grown up, this story recounts memories of growing up in a warm, loving family. The two moms, Meema and Marmee, have three children by...
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