To ask why it’s so hard to find a children’s book without a dead parent or pity for only children?!

[SashaPearce]

Trying to choose a book as a birthday present for a friend’s daughter. She’s turning 9 and is an only child. Thought it would be easy as I loved reading and still own lots of my favourites but finding it really hard! Several I feel like I’m having to rule out because they include a brief conversation where characters with multiple siblings are pitying an only child, ‘isn’t it sad, they must be so lonely’. Find this infuriating! I guess it’s an index of how unusual one child families were in the past - and maybe a sign that I need to be looking at more contemporary books rather than classics - but seriously, why? Did it really not occur to the authors at the time that it wasn’t nice to introduce to only children who might well be perfectly happy the idea that they ought to feel sorry for themselves?

The other thing I’m really struggling with is the number of parental deaths. Can’t believe how many children’s books seem to begin with this in some form or another! I wonder if I’m worrying too much, because I read these books myself as a child, and strangely even though I was quite an anxious kid it somehow never occurred to me to make the connection between the character’s parents dying and the idea that mine might. But one of my favourites starts with a parent dying in a plane crash. We flew a lot when I was a kid (due to DF’s family living overseas) and I never worried about this, but friend’s daughter also gets taken on a lot of international trips and I really don’t want to be the one to introduce the idea that this is something she needs to worry about! Am I being over-scrupulous?

YABU: kid will be caught up in the story and won’t even notice or care about the bits about only children being pitiable and parents being killed in plane crashes

YANBU: pick something else

I would avoid the ones pitying only children. But missing/dead parents is pretty much a staple of child literature. It gives a bit of freedom in the imagination and helps kids to appreciate what they’ve got I guess.

I was an only child and loved those types of stories (maybe I’m a bit morbid 😂). I used to love imagining myself as a poor Victorian orphan.

Favourites including A Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Goodnight Mister Tom. I guess Harry Potter even meets the description!

Because adults think kids don't have enough imagination to think they have to have a bool to suit every single thing kids go through

Animals that talk is perfectly normal but a book where there are 2 birth parents living together is odd it seems, type thing

Yeah I agree, I think parental death on its own wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but I’m uncomfortable with the plane crash thing given that the kid flies a lot. Particularly given that the parent is killed flying to a place that the kid will be flying to a few weeks after her birthday! It’s just so annoying as the book is perfect in every other way, and the parental plane crash is really a footnote to the story

Famous Five. George is an only child, and awesome.

However. There is all the racism and sexism. And smugglers.

I wouldn't worry about the dead parent thing unless this child had never seen/been traumatised by disney films. Can't move for dead parents in those.

I'd avoid the only child pity though.

If she’s 9 get the first Lottie Brooks book ( written by Hurrah for Gin).

Many of not most books are based around the child having freedom for some reason so boarding school, summer activities etc. being an orphan, having a stepparent who ignores you etc give opportunity for plot.

Living in a normal 2 parent household with a reasonable income going to a normal average school just isn't much of a plot

Rooftoppers is a great book about an only child. Pretty sure there is no mention of how awful it must be.

The parents are generally dead or missing because if they where around they would be telling the protagonist children to stop putting them selves into dangerous situations and get inside for their tea. Instead of solving mysteries for chapterson end, their mum would have called the police on page 2, then sent them in to do their homework, and that would be the end of the book.

I’d say the faraway tree stories but even in that I think I remember a spoilt only child who comes to visit.

Like pp says it gives the characters chance to have the adventures when they have either one or no parents watching them.

October October. Only child but very happy. Parents are separated but involved with the main characters lives. As part of the story their relationship strengthens. Perfect for the age of the child too. Couldn't recommend enough.

Cressida Cowell’s The Wizards of Once is perfect for 9 year olds.

The Witch Wars series - most of the characters are only children and while there is a missing parent they aren't dead. It's also based on the premise that circa 9 year old girls are the best people to rule the world

Rainbow Gray - two loving, present parents. I am pretty certain the main character is an only child.

The Tiffany Aching books from Terry Pratchett. Two alive and loving, if not especially attentive, parents (grandmother has just died at the start of the book). She's not an only child but she is more like to envy only children than pity them.

I'm an only child and read plenty of those sorts of books. I think I just thought "well it doesn't apply to me obviously!"

Ooh thank you for all the recommendations!

Nicholas in The Wool Pack by Cynthia Harnett is an only child, and has loving relationships with his parents (this is a gorgeous, not very well known book, set in late medieval England). It does parent-child relationships very well, IMO.

Bobbie in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is an only child. At the start of the story her mother is very ill, an later her parents are thought to have died during a sea voyage, but they return safe and in much better health at the end.

Pippi Longstocking is an only child; her mother is dead but she is resolutely happy, and her father is also absent (he's a sea captain), which plays into the trope others mention about parents needing to be removed for children's adventure stories to work.

Chronicals of Narnia, I’m pretty sure the parents are away not dead and they’re obviously not only children. Just have to ignore the absolutely not subtle at all evangelicalism.

David Walliams books don’t seem to follow this trope, but most of the parents are pretty awful at parenting.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, no only child woe iirc, he was adored by a full and loving family.

I read a Jaqueline Wilson as a child, the one about twins (I want to say named Ruby and Garnet). It was very much a sibling story.

But as others say, the best children’s books come from a place of deep loss or sadness that motivates the young person. Hell, Disney realised this formula could make them billions for decades….

What about The Railway Children? No only child or dead parent I think?

Ooh! And Mall Percival in A Parcel of Patterns by the wonderful Jill Paton Walsh. An absolutely brilliant story for readers aged about 9-12. Mall is an only child with two parents who are both portrayed as fully rounded characters and loving parents.

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
Nowhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie

Both are brilliant.

But the OP wants books about only children.

Introduce her to Lottie Brooks - you will become a legend

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell is brilliant - we also loved the Morrigan Crow series by Jessica Townsend and The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell.

What about The Railway Children? No only child or dead parent I think?

Absent parent, for most of the book.
'Daddy, my Daddy!'

Living in a normal 2 parent household with a reasonable income going to a normal average school just isn't much of a plot

And at the time a lot of classic children's books were written, many children reading them would have lost one or both parents. The books were reflecting the real life experience of many children in that respect.