Sad Books

The Bridge to Terabithia was the first book I read that really made me understand empathy, although at the time I couldn't have told you what empathy was. I connected deeply with the characters and my fifth grade world crashed when certain events happened. I was ripe for this story. You see, when I was in elementary school, a boy in the grade below me (third, I think) had a baby brother drown in the stock tank on the ranch his family managed. Less than a year later, a boy in my class lost his father in a single engine plane crash.

It's true that childhood trauma stays with a person.

It's also true that books can help the healing process.

For this post, I'm going to suggest some recent titles I've read which deal with sadness, and more specifically, the death of someone. Please know this is not a comprehensive list. It only represents the middle grade books I've recently read and recall that deal with the death of someone. I read and loved them all, and if you know a young person affected by the death of a loved one, please consider a gift of one or more of these books.

Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Lost in the Sun, by Lisa Graff
The Thing About Jellyfish, by Ali Benjamin
Summerlost, by Ally Condie
The Miraculous, by Jess Redman
The Light in the Lake by Sarah R. Baughman

If you know of others, I hope add your suggestions below and tweet them to me at @Robertpolk2.

Thanks for reading and writing!
Rob