In asking for books that you can't read without crying?

[karenbokaren]

Inspired by the thread about songs that make you cry, what books make you sob?

Some kids ones for me, the end of Peter Pan and Winnie The Pooh.

And anything by Nancy Tillman. It's totally calculated but I remember someone giving me a set when I was pregnant with ds and reading one at my baby shower. I was hysterical.

And The Old Woman Who Names Things. She's seen too many people die and is lonely and alone so names her her fucking chairs and appliances.

Little Women

There's a classical music adaptation of The Selfish Giant, which is how I came across it. Beautiful.

As to books, Skallagrigg by William Horwood. Works every time.

Yes to The Happy Prince, The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince. My total weepy is The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor. When you read what was her love letter (no spoiler), you will use up at least two boxes of tissues for Mary and her contemporaries:

www.virago.co.uk/titles/f-m-mayor/the-rectors-daughter/9780860689119/

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Hand That First Held Mine - Maggie O’Farrell

drinkswineoutofamug:

'She pressed her face as close to him as possible'

😭

Velveteen Rabbit and Goodbye Mog. And, when I was teaching, it was Charlotte's Web; even my Y6 boys would be damp-eyed.

Anything by Morpurgo. I have given up trying to read them aloud to the kids and resorted to audiobooks. The Silver Sword for me going recently. The list of books that make me cry is endless

seconding
Time Traveller's Wife
Charlotte's Web
Kite Runner - and a Thousand Splendid Suns.

Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - the end

The Forest of Souls by Carla Banks - occupation of eastern Europe in the last war. Broke my heart.

Goodnight Mr Tom, boy in the striped pyjamas, kramer v kramer

Where the Red Fern Grows. Read it once. Will never read it again.

A Monster Calls

The hunters of Cherokee county. Want to cry now thinking about it
Little Women
Bridges of Madison County
5 people you meet in heaven (mitch albom)
Tuesdays with Morrie (mitch albom)
A friend for little bear (harry horse)
The whale and the snail (Julia Donaldson)

I'd totally forgotten The Brothers Lionheart.
How I'll never know.
Will have to track down a copy now!

The Velveteen Rabbit.

I think this is the only book that has ever made me cry.

MOG DIES?!?!?!

I've only ever cried at children's books. Children are clearly made of sterner stuff than I am!

I sobbed in front of my class while reading Warhorse.

A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh, has a child character called John Andrew. He is a beautifully and hilariously believable little boy and there is a particular scene (that I won't spoil) that is just one of the best passages of writing I have ever read.

It's not his best work, but worth reading for John Andrew.

@StepAwayFromGoogle oh god sorry. Yes.

Dogger

Every Single Time

“Then Bella did something Very Kind’

On the Night you were Born...

^'Heaven blew every trumpet
And played every horn
On the wonderful, marvellous
Night you were born'^

The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson
The Green Mile by Stephen King
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

The end of The Railway Children, where the author decides that we will leave them now, to essentially have their reunion in peace. Seems so much more powerful than any reunion that could have been described.
And “Daddy, my Daddy!” - I lost my dad, and that bit fucking kills me.

Grandads Island ... Kids book that beautifully depicts a boy going to his Grandad's house one day & him being nowhere to be found. Wow. Right in the feels!

There's a ladybird book called Ginger's Adventures and I've never yet managed to read it aloud without losing it at the final page.

Someone's already mentioned Skallagrigg by William Horwood - heartbreaking book.