Kids picture books that make you tear up

[BiscuitLover3678]

Stickman and Paper Dolls both by Julia Donaldson.

Also Bye Bye Baby by the Ahlbergs. Dear god! 😭

Also, "On the night you were born" ❤️

Small by Clara Vulliamy. The little toy mouse all alone and battling to get to the boy. Then the boy looking for his mouse. The final sweet images of them together. Such beautiful illustrations.

Like others, Owl Babies too. When mum returns.

I’m a teacher but I can’t read Paper Dolls out loud. Without getting too maudlin it’s the bit where the girl grows up to be a mummy. I never got the chance to be the kind mummy. It doesn’t get to me often, but it does in that book.

Dogger makes me cry too. But because of the mum. She looks like my mum did when I was little. The flares, clogs and head scarf.

Little Robin red breast Christmas book. I thunk that’s what it’s called . Every single time it gets me. My kids are too big now though.

This thread makes me so wistful for that time when everyone could fit into a tiny bed and we would read all those books. Life was so much more simple then.
I loved Someday. I still read it sneakily, thinking how perfectly it is written, although perhaps more for parents than young children. My dd couldn’t be doing with it after a while as I always ended up weeping.

Yes! I had this as a child in the late 80’s/ early 90’s and have now got it for my toddler DS!

A random hand-me-down book called ‘Just like you’ 🥲

I had to give that one away. I welled up every time. My DH thought it was just a bit weird. Until I (crying) explained the back story 😭😭

I couldn’t read all that description, too stressful.
I too deny all knowledge of Goodbye Mog.

Can I add Mr Pusskin? It’s about a little girl and her cat that she fusses over and the cat gets fed up with her so leaves. But he gets lost. Then he finds a missing poster and calls her. She comes to get him and all is forgiven.
I read it to my class as looked up to see my TA in floods.

We love the Small books too. My dd really struggled with starting school. I got her the Tom and Small book and a little mouse like Small and it helped her a lot.

Badger’s Parting Gifts, it is the most brutal book I have ever read. It is beautiful but I can’t get through without big raking sobs.

Mole's Christmas from Wind in the Willows is lovely.

Peepo, DD1 was obsessed when she was 2 and wanted it read every night when I was in the early stages of a pregnancy I would go on to miscarry (there had been previous miscarriages but this pregnancy had gone on longer so we were hopeful). After I miscarried (which was a painful traumatic affair) she still wanted it and I'd be a sobbing mess. In the end I had to give it to my DM and ask her to take it away.

There were more miscarriages, but miracle DD2 was born 8 months ago. I keep thinking I should get Peepo back
But I can't quite bring myself.

That and Paper Dolls.

Dogger gets me. "And then Bella did a very kind thing".

Love you forever by Robert Munsch

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be.

I'm sobbing at the end of it 😭

Dogger was my favourite story as a child. I have just started to read it to my twin daughters, they are a little indifferent & prefer A squash & a squeeze ( not sad at all )

Not a picture book but Mandy by Julie Andrews about a little girl in care who finds a derelict house & tries to make it in to the home she wishes she had, it was the first book that made me cry.

Oh my gosh. This!
My voice cracks every. single. time. during the last line "and they laughed and laughed, because Miss Nancy's memories had been found again, by a small boy, who wasn't very old either".

Ugh, I'm tearing up just thinking of it! I work in aged care so maybe I'm particularly emotional about this book!

Dear Greenpeace - Simon James

"Worried that the whale living in her pond is unhappy, Emily writes to Greenpeace, who, though offering the best of advice, insist that it is impossible for a whale to live in a pond. Undeterred, Emily continues to seek the best course of action for her beloved whale, finally setting him free."

Love that the whale expert is so kind to a little girl with a 'whale in her pond' and she manages to return the whale to his home

Babushka, the version by Arthur Scholey. The Three Wise Men visit her on their way to Bethlehem and tell her they are off to see a new baby king. She tells them that she lost her own little baby boy, her little king, years before. Then later, she gets out all his toys from an old cupboard. Such a lovely sad old tale.

Papa Panov

@Glasscup the truth is that my own dad watched the film on tv with my own daughter when she was three years old. I remember him being really upset at the ending and hugging her tight. And he got ill and died unexpectedly about 3 months later. Terrible

I'm sorry to say the Paper Dolls book went on the bonfire.
It had to be done.

At the end of the day these children's authors should think very carefully and bear in mind those families who have experienced heartbreaking loss.
It goes beyond being a "bit emotional" for us.
Children's books should always be light hearted and upbeat, without any hidden meanings for parents to break their hearts over.
A bedtime story read by a crying mum is in no way beneficial to the child.
I'm speaking from my own personal loss.