64 Books Like Uh-Oh, Niko

I chose these books because they each approach big feelings with a kind of gentle honesty and expressive clarity. These classics use powerful, earnest text and heartfelt illustrations that help name, normalize, and, at times, create an adventure around feeling new, big emotions. Each of these treasured titles offers more than just a story—they give children tools for emotional resonance and resilience. They strike a delicate balance between lyrical prose, whimsical art, and emotional honesty. The Mood Swing is a charm bracelet of these different stories, woven into one. Many gave me comfort as a kid, and helped me feel supported and empowered to explore—and name—my deepest feelings.

I’ve spent my whole life working with children’s books. Firstly, as a listener–I was lucky enough to be read to frequently as a child. Then, as a reader. Later, I shared books as a teacher, editor, and publisher. But perhaps my favorite moments with books have been as a mother and now as an author. That’s a lot of books read, written, edited, shared, and loved! And for me, bedtime is the best time of day to share a book with a child. So, snuggle up and enjoy a favorite book with a favorite little person–they won’t be little for long!

I’ve spent my whole life working with children’s books. Firstly, as a listener–I was lucky enough to be read to frequently as a child. Then, as a reader. Later, I shared books as a teacher, editor, and publisher. But perhaps my favorite moments with books have been as a mother and now as an author. That’s a lot of books read, written, edited, shared, and loved! And for me, bedtime is the best time of day to share a book with a child. So, snuggle up and enjoy a favorite book with a favorite little person–they won’t be little for long!

I’ve spent my whole life working with children’s books. Firstly, as a listener–I was lucky enough to be read to frequently as a child. Then, as a reader. Later, I shared books as a teacher, editor, and publisher. But perhaps my favorite moments with books have been as a mother and now as an author. That’s a lot of books read, written, edited, shared, and loved! And for me, bedtime is the best time of day to share a book with a child. So, snuggle up and enjoy a favorite book with a favorite little person–they won’t be little for long!

If one of the main reasons we marry is to raise a family, what happens to the couple once the children grow up and no longer need daily care? 

A few years ago, I completed an MSc in Psychology, and my dissertation explored exactly this question. After interviewing many couples, it became clear that unless parents are emotionally prepared for life after children, the sense of loss can be overwhelming. That research raised deeper questions about why we commit—and what keeps us committed.

I’ve always been drawn to family stories, from King Lear to Anna Karenina. The ties that bind us to family—however strained or frayed those ties might be—contain within their fibers the entire spectrum of human emotion. For a writer, this is fertile territory. I could contemplate endlessly the rivalry that exists between a pair of siblings, or the expectations a child has for their parent. Family dynamics are often kept private, which makes encountering them on the page even more thrilling. To be let in on the life of another, granted permission to bear witness to their secrets and innermost longings, is the rare gift that literature brings us. 

I’ve been researching the Leopold-Loeb case for around a decade, ever since a documentary sparked my interest back in high school. That sent me on a quest for knowledge: devouring all the books I could find on the subject, before turning to archival collections to look at the primary source material. Flash forward to today and I’ve read thousands of newspaper stories, hundreds of scholarly articles and books on the subject and travelled around the country searching in over 50 archives, trying to understand this case as much as I possibly can. Here’s a list of books I found particularly helpful or inspiring on my journey.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with life and death. As a child, my own life was fairly mundane and even joyful. However, I went through loss like most. We lost two dogs when I was maybe seven or nine. Then my beagle Suzy, who we had the longest, was struck by a car on a rainy day. A few years later, my grandfather passed from cancer. Watching my mother grieve stuck with me. It shaped me—how I cared about life, how I longed to understand it. Once I decided to write stories for children, I knew it could be a safe place to explore my hidden feelings.

I have always been intrigued by the Roaring 20s, and specifically in how the lives of women truly began to change during this time. My grandmother loved to boast about how she had been a flapper as a young woman. Her sister-in-law was one of the first female attorneys in Detroit in the mid-20s. The era brought about opportunities and freedoms previously unknown to women. Many women suddenly had options, both in terms of careers and lifestyles. Goals of first wave feminists were beginning to be reached. The research I did for my book furthered my understanding of society at the time, particularly in America. 

When I was fourteen years old, my family moved from Texas to London for a year, and I started going to a little second-hand book shop around the corner. It was run by a long-haired Canadian, who always smoked a pipe. There were only three or four aisles, plus a cluttered backroom. You could pick up a 19th-century edition of the complete works of Shelley, with uncut pages, for two pounds. One volume led to another, in the same way that one friendship can lead to another, or introduce you to a new circle of people. Twenty-odd years later, I decided to write a novel about some of these writers.