Volume 273
Issue 13
03/30/2026
The Fabric of Us
The pigtails-and-glasses-wearing narrator lives a happy life with Papa, who sews, and Dad, who cooks. After Papa dies and the snip! whirr! clank! of his sewing machine no longer fills their home, the child and Dad take up fabric, thread, and needle as a way to reconnect with him. Anand’s tactile-looking, collage-like illustrations lend texture to her quietly emotional text.
I Built a Rocket Ship
In order to be closer to a lost loved one, a child builds a cardboard rocket ship based on plans they’d once dreamed up together during playtime (“You feel as far away as the stars,” the child explains). As the young narrator continues to build and furnish—“I brought in the drawing you always had in your wallet”—and Dad makes his own contributions, the backyard structure becomes as much a memory-filled tribute as it is an imaginary conveyance.
Love Lives On
Will’s close-knit extended family is ruptured when a cherished cousin is killed in a mass shooting. The book focuses not on violence but on healing, as Will and his family discuss their emotions (“There’s no shame in crying,” his dad says. ”It shows how much we loved Cat”) and share memories. As life continues, Williamson takes care to depict the long road of grief and recovery, as well as the importance of celebrating life.
More Than a Tree
“When a family’s beloved backyard tree must be felled, a bittersweet grieving process unfolds,” according to PW’s review of “this sympathetic picture book of mourning and regrowth.” Kurpiel’s illustrations show how the young narrator enjoyed the tree throughout the changing seasons, how one day “a crew rolled in the tallest crane I’d ever seen” and cut the dying oak down into nothing, and how the family eventually planted a butterfly garden and a sapling to nurture in its place.
Ours: A Story of Loss and Healing
The unnamed narrator is excited by Mama’s growing belly and the prospect of a new sibling, but one snowy day, “Papa calls my grandparents. I hear him say something is wrong with the baby.” As the rest of the story unfolds, Settembre’s text provides an elegant way of explaining to a child that the baby sister they were expecting isn’t coming after all, while Matsumoto’s delicate art portrays the family grieving together and finding other ways of welcoming new life into the world.
