Here are 100 books that The Boy and the Gorilla fans have personally recommended if you like
The Boy and the Gorilla.
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Nancy Bo Flood earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and Child Development at the University of Minnesota and has authored a variety of award-winning books. Walking Grandma Home came from her own experience as a child, as a counselor, and as a daughter. She has lived and taught on the Pacific island of Saipan, where she worked with teachers and parents to create resources and programs for students with disabilities, and for the past twenty years, she has taught in the Navajo Nation. With Native educators, she co-founded an early-literacy nonprofit, Read at Home, which encourages parents to read regularly with their children.
In the delightful book, a granddaughter enjoys many fun activities with her grandmother, especially dancing like a leaf. Grandmother begins to change in many ways, especially physically and with her memory. And then “Grandmother’s bed is empty.” The child grieves but slowly feels comfort and even joy as she celebrates the many activities she had shared with her grandmother.
As her grandmother's health declines, a young girl begins to lovingly take the lead in their cosy shared autumn traditions. Poetic prose paired with evocative illustrations by Mexican illustrator Claudia Navarro make for a beautiful celebration of life and a gentle introduction to the death of a loved one.
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
Nancy Bo Flood earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and Child Development at the University of Minnesota and has authored a variety of award-winning books. Walking Grandma Home came from her own experience as a child, as a counselor, and as a daughter. She has lived and taught on the Pacific island of Saipan, where she worked with teachers and parents to create resources and programs for students with disabilities, and for the past twenty years, she has taught in the Navajo Nation. With Native educators, she co-founded an early-literacy nonprofit, Read at Home, which encourages parents to read regularly with their children.
A family moves through the darkness and isolation of depression and anger, two emotions that are part of their grieving the father’s death.Images and words of the natural world show the sadness and confusion of their feelings.Finally the moment arrives when anger is fiercely expressed – why did you die, Dad?
Anger as part of grieving is often hidden – because how can one be angry at someone for dying?All this pent-up emotion comes out in negative ways.In The Pond, Nicola Davies effectively uses the metaphor of a pond as that well of anger – a dirty, dead, ugly, lifeless, and stinky pond.Slowly the pond changes as family members pause, reflect, and express feelings.The pond begins to fill with new life, even with tadpoles that Dad had once imagined.Now the pond offers discovery, peace, and beauty, a place and a way for…
1
author picked
The Pond
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
A touching picture book for children about a young boy and his family overcoming the loss of his father. This colorful, emotional book is filled with natural imagery, centering on a small pond in the garden, and will teach children not only about death and loss, but the importance of the natural world.
Nancy Bo Flood earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and Child Development at the University of Minnesota and has authored a variety of award-winning books. Walking Grandma Home came from her own experience as a child, as a counselor, and as a daughter. She has lived and taught on the Pacific island of Saipan, where she worked with teachers and parents to create resources and programs for students with disabilities, and for the past twenty years, she has taught in the Navajo Nation. With Native educators, she co-founded an early-literacy nonprofit, Read at Home, which encourages parents to read regularly with their children.
With few words and simple images, we journey with a child as she becomes friends with an elderly neighbor who also loves birds, nature, the changing seasons, and expressing that love through art. But as the change of seasons continues, the girl’s elderly friend becomes fragile in health and strength. Even with an ache in her heart, the child discovers the comfort of remembering special times together and gathering together the drawings they shared. At night, while watching the rising of the full round “frog moon,” the child bundles up close to her mother and “My hands feel warm, and the covers feel soft, and I think of my friend until I fall asleep.”
1
author picked
Birdsong
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
3,
4,
5, and
6.
What is this book about?
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, KIRKUS, HORN BOOK, QUILL & QUIRE, GLOBE AND MAIL
WINNER OF THE TD CANADIAN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD
AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE HONOR TITLE
A BOSTON GLOBE--HORN BOOK HONOR BOOK
When Katherena and her mother move to a small town, Katherena feels lonely and out of place. But when she meets an elderly woman artist who lives next door, named Agnes--her world starts to change.
Katherena and Agnes share the same passions for arts and crafts, birds, and nature. But as the seasons change,…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
Nancy Bo Flood earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and Child Development at the University of Minnesota and has authored a variety of award-winning books. Walking Grandma Home came from her own experience as a child, as a counselor, and as a daughter. She has lived and taught on the Pacific island of Saipan, where she worked with teachers and parents to create resources and programs for students with disabilities, and for the past twenty years, she has taught in the Navajo Nation. With Native educators, she co-founded an early-literacy nonprofit, Read at Home, which encourages parents to read regularly with their children.
In this book, we observe the mourning traditions of a Jewish family. A young daughter and her father show us their grief for their mother and wife. They do not want to invite others to come to their home and “sit Shiva” with them. They feel alone in their loss. But friends and family come.
People bring food, memories, stories, love, and caring. Healing begins. In her author's note, Erin Silver concludes, "What every faith has in common is the idea of community. When someone dies, people bring food; they talk, and they gather. People have a need to care for each other, and the mourning process gives people that chance to share."
It is this coming together – the expression of care and kindness - that is the power of community to help us all heal.
A little girl grieves the loss of her mother, but she can’t grieve alone.
When her friends and family arrive at her house to sit shiva, laden with cakes and stories, she refuses to come downstairs. But the laughter and memories gradually bring her into the fold, where she is comforted by her community. By the end of the book, she feels stronger and more nourished, and she understands the beautiful tradition. Then, when sees her father sitting alone, she is able to comfort him in his time of need. Sitting Shiva is a beautiful, heartfelt story about grief and…
Memoirs have crept up on me as favorites. I could list many more. Please let me! As a psychoanalyst, I listen to the pains and struggles of individuals trying to become more at ease with themselves. They engage with their demons and try to make sense of how to manage the way their personal history has created their worldview and how to expand it enough to enter a present. Memoirs are another way of addressing such struggles. They have an elegance and a universality that emerges out of their individual stories. We learn about the other and we learn about ourselves.
Lisa’s husband dies as he is being treated for cancer. She writes about the first year after in which grief, madness, confusion, isolation, and fury coincide with Britain’s beginning Brexit madness. Nothing can be made sense of and yet we need words to express what’s happening. And then words provide for consoling and managing.
After the death of her partner of thirty-two years, Lisa Appignanesi was thrust into a state striated by rage and superstition in which sanity felt elusive. Then, too, the cultural and political moment seemed to collude with her condition: everywhere people were dislocated and angry.
In this electrifying and brave examination of an ordinary enough death and its aftermath, Everyday Madness uses all Lisa Appignanesi's evocative and analytic powers to scrutinize her own and our society's experience of grieving. With searing honesty, lashed by humour, she navigates us onto the…
Grief has been a part of my life since I was very young. My parents died 10 months apart when I was 11, then 12; my only sibling died when I was 20. Years later, after living through the grief of watching my marriage crumble and my 3 children struggle, my eldest son died at 20 in a single-car crash. Now, 26 years later, I read—and write—about navigating grief and uncertainty. I’m passionate about supporting those who grieve all manner of losses, including those that are spoken about and those often shrouded in silence. I hope you enjoy this book list as much as I have creating it.
I’ve wanted a book like Can Anyone Tell Me?—a practical guide to understanding what’s really happening when we’re thrust into grief—since my son’s death at age 20, more than 26 years ago.
In plain, easy-to-digest language with a smattering of humor, Jarvis tackles questions like Why can’t I remember anything? Why can’t I sleep? Why do I suddenly dislike my friends? She explains the neuroscience behind what we’re experiencing and provides brief case studies, advice for grievers, and—what I’ve found missing in so many books—advice for those who want to support them.
I recommend this book to those new to grief, those whose loss is long past, and anyone who loves someone who’s grieving—which, in the end, is nearly all of us.
If you've experienced the trauma of loss, you might find yourself struggling with the "whys" of grief: Why can't I remember anything? Why can't I sleep? Why do I feel angry and isolated? Why do I suddenly dislike my friends? Psychotherapist and grief specialist Meghan Riordan Jarvis shares a research-based resource filled with clinical insights and practical steps toward navigating loss with Can Anyone Tell Me?
"Though each experience is unique, we all grieve in our bodies," Meghan says. "By recognising grief as a kind of trauma, we better understand why our mind and body respond in sometimes perplexing ways…
I’ve sat in many grief circles and listened to fellow grievers share their pain at being abandoned or misunderstood by their friends and families as they grieve. Often we suffer the secondary loss of community because our culture has not taught us how to grieve or how to be a friend to those in grief. My wife and I found some invaluable tools that helped us communicate our needs to our community, and keep them close on our grief journey. One of those tools is grief books. I’ve read dozens of them, and while everyone responds to grief books differently, I think these five books are the very best.
This book is a wonderful practical guide to grieving that is accompanied by charming illustrations from the author. This might make it sound child-like or cutsie, but it’s not at all.
It’s an honest and fierce guide that doesn’t use any cheesy aphorisms or simplistic clichés about grief. It tells it like it is, but with kindness and hope. It helped me feel not so alone.
Welcome to the Grief Club--a place where one human who experienced a terrible loss, Janine Kwoh, is at the door to welcome other humans who are grieving. It is not an instruction manual, or a step-by-step playbook, or a memoir. It is, rather, a fresh, empathetic approach to all of the surprising, confusing, brutal, funny, and downright bizarre parts of grief. Combining her own experiences with grief--the author's partner died when both were in their late 20s--with what she learned from others in her "grief club," Kwoh uses brief writings and observations, hand-drawn illustrations, and diagrams to explore all the…
I came to discover the healing power of art, nature, and ritual while I was grieving the loss of my father a decade ago. I would go to the park and make impermanent and symmetrical art from found twigs, flowers, pine cones, berries, and leaves as a way to ground, heal my broken heart, and make sense of a chaotic time. Since then, I‘ve made over a thousand nature altars, written a book about it (Morning Altars), and have taught tens of thousands of people around the world to make meaning in their lives through a creative collaboration with the natural world. It still amazes me that something so simple and impermanent can bring such wonder and resilience.
Because my art is impermanent, I write and think about that subject a lot. And IMHO, no one speaks as beautifully and powerfully to the subjects of impermanence, life, loss, and beauty better than Prechtel. Prechtel's book is a well of indigenous wisdom on the living relationship between grief and praise. He says, "When you’re grieving for the thing you got, it's called praise. When you're praising for the thing you lost, it's called grief.” If the Earth is speaking her wisdom, this author is delivering it faithfully and beautifully to us.
Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, "Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost,…
I'm the author of the best-selling books How to Tell Depression to Piss Off: 40 Ways to Get Your Life Back, How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off: 40 Ways to Get Your Life Back, The Recovery Letters, and What I Do to Get Through. My sixth book will be, How to Smash Stress: 40 Ways to Manage the Unmanageable.
He describes the death of his partner from alcoholism and the events leading up to it in an unflinchingly honest and moving way. It's raw and personal but that's what grief is. It's beautiful and respectful and shows how grief is both a shared experience and so completely individual at the same time.
'Immensely moving and disarmingly witty' Nigella Lawson 'Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read' Matt Haig 'Beautifully written, moving and gut-wrenching, but also at times very funny' Ian Rankin 'Captures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement' The Times 'Will strike a chord with anyone who has grieved' Independent
Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife, or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles's life and work. But when his partner the Reverend David Coles died,…
Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
This is an inspiring book of hope after loss. Michele provides readers with current and relevant ideas on how to integrate the love of your past with the pain of the present to find joy in the future. She shares her personal journey with great vulnerability, emphasizing the self-doubt that occurs while navigating the endless decisions that arise following the loss of a partner. As you read Michele's candid personal stories you will find her words relatable, sharing tears with her as well as great laughter. It is uplifting, practical, and written in a very caring way.
A Life-Affirming Process That Provides Transformative Support
No one who lives and loves will be immune from grief and trauma. While this suffering is universal, living through a devastating event often leaves people feeling alone and even alienated. Michele Neff Hernandez experienced this when her thirty-nine-year-old husband died after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Her most transformative realization was that grief changes us. There is no going back or bucking up. Life is now different.
In Different after You, Michele presents easy-to-digest steps based on her work with thousands of widowed people and her innovative grief…
