To not quite see the fuss with Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes?

[weeblueberry]

Virtually everyone has said they cry at the end of this kids book but I bought it to read with the wee one this evening and...nothing. I wasn't quite sure what bit I was supposed to find emotional other than the poor wee bugger who's got sniffles and coughs

Am I just a cold hearted bitch or is there something I'm missing?

try Polar the Titanic Bear
true story and possibly the saddest book I've ever read

It's not a book, but grandad. It was a cartoon done in the same style as the snowman. bawls

Give it a few years.

My kids are 15 and 17. Last week my DP handed down a pile of baby books that I'd put in the loft (we're moving house) and I instantly burst into tears.

God help the grandkids.

Goodbye Mog was the only one that reduced me to tears in the reading when mine were little.

You buggers.

Just read On The Night You Were Born, and now I'm in tears.

Bloody hell.

Once There Were Giants kills me. It's one of the times I really wish I had a little girl who would have a little girl (random).

Beegu. When that poor little scrap is running about looking for her alien mother...

"From far away
she thought she heard
her mother
calling..."

[The telephone rings... could it be...?] "But it wasn't her."

Waaaaaaaaaaaah

Love you forever is the saddest book I've ever read. Not creepy at all! now I know that about why he wrote it, well, even sadder.

Gosh yes, the Grandpa film. Innocently taped it off the TV around the time my DF died. I suspect it helped DD who was 5 yo. I'm not the emotional kind, but now I can't see to type!!!

YY to Bye Bye Baby, Badger's Parting Gifts and the end of Winnie the Pooh.

Knuffle Bunny Free - Mo Willems (the letter she gets at the end from her dad)
Paper Dolls - Julia Donaldson
Goodbye Mog - Judith Kerr

All three get me, every single time. My children study my face waiting for the wobble of the voice and the appearance of the tears. Same places every time. I'm also a Reception teacher and my TA almost had to rescue me once when I was reading my class Paper Dolls. The children were intrigued though and it led to a nice discussion about how books can make you feel all sorts of emotions.

Dogger haunted me as a child, it was my favourite book, but it didn't make me cry.

So glad I'm not the only one who cried in a bookshop reading Goodbye Mog. The assistant in Waterstones brought me tissues and sympathised.

The one that used to make me cry reading it to my children was Nothing By Mick Inkpen. I could never finish it without tears running down my face. My kids are now 18 and 21 and we came accross it in a cupboard the other day. It still made me cry!

Oh, GOD, Peepo... like other posters have said, it's those specific lines at the end, "he sees the landing mirror with its rainbow rim/and a mother with a baby just like him"...

Honestly I have a lump in my throat even thinking about it.

Can any cleverer than me Eng Lit types come on and EXPLAIN what it is about those specific lines, PLEASE?? I mean, I know the 'backstory' of the book is about his dad, and the war, but for me anyway it's nothing to do with that when I get choked up over those lines. It's the words/the emotions they touch themselves... and I can't work out why!!!

(NB I studied Literature at university so i SHOULD know this, but I don't. I don't get why the configuration of those words makes me, and so many others, bawl.)

Duchess - I think the mirror thing is an emotional moment because what do we all see in mirrors? We see ourselves reflected back, and if we read Peepo to our children we suddenly remember that once upon a time we were the baby and it was our mum looking into the mirror with us, and before that our mum was a baby too, and so on and so on. I think that's why it gets to me, although Peepo is a sniffler rather than full-on weeping for me.

ah, marshmallow, that's an excellent explanation... will have a ponder on't. Yes I think it's definitely a huge part of it. Hm. Maybe also because of that lovely innocent surprise that the baby in the book (and therefore all our own babies) has when he sees himself in the mirror...?

I'm at the age where Peepo was read to me. I don't know if that makes a difference...?
I'm happy to realise it's not just me that's goes funny reading this book. I couldn't love it more.

The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers. Bit of an odd one as children don't really get it but it makes me HOWL.

It's The Paper Dolls for me too. The line about a kind granny being in the little girl's memory is what does it - my granny died two weeks before I got married and the one word I instantly think of when I picture her in my memory is kind.

Once there were giants does it for me, dd had a thing for it when she was about 4 and occasionally still wants it read to her at bedtime. but i want to know more about uncle tom, he looks kind and he's obviously great with the kids but has he lived with his sister his whole adult life? Why? What's his story? Is he just there to have an easy rhyme or is he there to demonstrate an alternative way of family living? Fascinating stuff!

I also had to wipe away a few tears during readings of Big Brother Little Brother (same artist as Once There Were Giants)

Bella's face when giving away the giant teddy in Dogger, nothing else, just that illustration. she might make light of it later but she's lying when she says she didn't like that big teddy's stary eyes, she loved that teddy and she did a VERY kind thing. sob!

Can't you sleep little bear had my in floods of tears when I bought it at a boot sale and I have no idea why as it's not even a sad story

On the Peepo! phenomenon, apart from the joy at being a mother with a baby boy of my own in my arms after fearing it may never happen, I'm also really moved by the father in uniform in the illustration. He's obviously about to leave the house in it; probably about to be deployed and won't be home for a while, if at all. And yet the happy little baby is so oblivious. All he sees are these smiling people who adore him and take care of him. Sob!

Oh god yes The Heart and the Bottle, should come with a warning sticker (may cause distress to reader and bafflement to your children...)
Ds got one snivelly read then I got rid...

Jeffer's Lost and Found book isn't anywhere near as tear-jerking as the animation, I think it's the music, after hundreds of viewings (ds loves it, the sod) I still struggle.

SuperMoonIsKeepingMeUpToo
you weren't the only one but we are definitely in a minority!

JacquesHammer I thought I was the only one who cried reading 'Giraffes can't dance'

I did not weep at Love you forever

Not even at the part where she was crawling across her adult son's bedroom floor in the dead of night?

How are so few mentioning 'No Matter What'?

"'Does love wear out? Does it break or bend?
Can you fix it? Stick it? Does it mend?'

'Oh help!' Said Large 'I'm not that clever!
I just knoe I'll love you forever'

Small said 'But what about when we're dead and gone?
Would you love me then? Does love go on?'

Large held Small snug, and they looked out at the night,
At the moon in the dark and the stars shining bright.

'Small, look at the stars, how they shine and glow,
But some of those stars died a long time ago.

Still they shine in the evening skies.
Love, like starlight, NEVER dies.'"

I also struggle near the end I'm so choked up