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Clover has handpicked some honeys for young readers this month, “Sincerely Sumptuous Selections” that are sure to captivate. These touching stories focus on kindness and love. Goodness knows we could all use a boost in the gray days of winter, capping off a year that’s been tough for one and all.
Get back in the pink with these feel-good reads.
The Community Literacy Foundation, with support from it's sponsors, provides these books to 37 school and public libraries in Washington, Union, Pacific, St. Clair and surrounding communities. Learn more at CommunityLiteracyFoundation.org.
Youngest Read
It’s easy to overlook meaningful things when we’re having a hard time. So it is for Lily, the bitty brunette in “Ten Beautiful Things” by Molly Beth Griffin. Lily has to adjust to a big life change—she’s on a road trip to Iowa with her grandmother—Lily will now be living with her.
In the car Lily’s feels a “… vibration in her chest,” the reality of adjusting to a new home looming on the horizon like a rolling thundercloud. Rather than trying to talk Lily out of her gloomies, her grandmother tells her to find 10 sights along the way that are beautiful. It doesn’t work immediately but gradually Lily feels the wonder of the world filling the worry holes in her heart.
This book with lovely illustrations by Maribel Lechuga is a reminder to look for inspiration when the road ahead looks bleak. Like Lily we can all benefit from grandma’s exercise in gratefulness.
Middle Read
Often books give us ideas we want to adopt—and Clover’s middle Pick has an adoptable that could impact others in a positive way. Why not pass along some goodwill using the real-life experience of the little girl in “Sincerely, Emerson, A Girl, her Letter and the Helpers Around Us,” by Emerson Weber. Readers will be moved by the example she set with her simple, yet profound, caring nod, one she offers to her postman that eventually spreads to others who serve the world in a myriad of ways.
Em loved to write letters and decorate them with her art. One day she realizes it’s her postman Doug who’s responsible for delivering her newsy notes—why not thank him in a letter, and so she does just that.
Her good deed gets played forward in ways Em couldn’t possibly have imagined. Her simple act of gratitude makes a big difference to many in Em’s circle, a circle that kept widening. This joy-filled story has bright, happy illustrations by Jaclyn Sinquett.
Oldest Read
Kindness, love and hope abound in the drawings and story of “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” by Charlie Mackesy. This book for all ages begins when a boy meets a mole, an unlikely creature to form a friendship with, regardless, a fast bond forms between them as they adventure into the wild.
Along the way, the two philosophize about life and soon come upon a fox caught in a trap—though the fox threatens to harm the mole, the mole chews through the wire ensnaring him. Later, the fox joins them on their trek, as one wise saying after another is discussed amongst them.
The three travelers become four when they meet a handsome horse, a wonderful addition to their caravan. This is a book to be shared, a book to be reveled in, a book with sayings to live by each day.
Written by Chris Stuckenschneider. Copyright 2021, Community Literacy Foundation. Reprinted with permission.
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