Children’s books that make you cry

[BikeRunSki]

When DD (now 6) was younger I could never finish The Paper Dolls without shedding a tear.

Tonight, we’be just finished the Sophie series (Dick King-Smith). The last 2 or 3 chapters had me crying my eyes out. DD was “but Mummy, it’s only a book’”.

Dear Daddy - every time!

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge - Oz book about a little boy helping an elderly neighbours regain her lost memory. DH flatly refused to read it

Goodbye Mog ..... I cried the first time I read it, and every time since .

The Railway Children. Can’t even talk about the ending without crying.

Church mice at christmas, for the sherr innocent joy of santa appearing. Thinking back to my childhood reading it, and then sharing it with dc.

I remember at primary school sobbing my eyes out at 'I Am David'. I read it to my dc when they were younger and sobbed again.

Grandads Island. Picture book, sooooo sad!

Gosh lots. My dc are older now so it has been things like goodnight Mr Tom, Back Home, His Dark Materials and such with children looking at me like I'm mad. I have a stash of Robin Jarvis books that I want to introduce the dc to but I can't bring myself to read them out loud because I still remember the trauma of reading them the first time.

Little match girl so sad

Dogger. It choked me up every single time - "Mummy, why have you stopped reading?"

The Little Princess, the description of her in the attic.
Also, description of Dobbi dying, cried as I read to my son.

Puff the magic dragon

Paper dolls

Both for their themes of the end of childhood.

Dogger. Gets me every time.

I came to say Grandad's Island too. Lovely book but I cry every time we read it.

Oh yeah, definitely Dogger. "and then Bella did something very kind". Blub.

And 'Once there were giants', Shirley Hughes.

Charlotte's Web, read it for the second time to my daughters, so knew what was coming... We were all bawling by the last page. The Ugly Duckling, Ladybird edition. To this day I cannot read it without crying. So many books and films give me a lump in my throat, not sure why.

Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs. Far too many sweet memories of bedtime stories for this new empty-nester.

See also Dogger ('and then Bella did something very kind'), Peepo, Pumpkin Soup, The Baby Who Wouldn't Go To Bed...

But worst of all is Goodbye Mog. Jeez Louise...

Love you forever

Clicked your post to say Paper Dolls!

Love You Forever makes me cry just thinking about it!

Dogger & Goodbye mog just made it into my amazon basket, hadn't heard of them before!

"No matter what" by Debi Gliori ("and still they shine in the evening skies, love, like starlight, never dies") sob

Paper dolls

And all the lovely Nancy Tillman books for tiny ones. Used to read them to my babies every night.

Oh The Places You'll Go - always gives me a lump in my throat. Dr Seuss books are wonderful.

On The Night You Were Born makes me weep without fail - I'm sobbing the words out by the end!

Can't remember the name of it but..

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

I still can't read it without crying, especially the end.

Ginger dying in black beauty
The Velveteen Rabbit
Watership Down
Animals of Farthing Wood, especially Fox Cub Bold dying alone in the bushes