I have written and rewritten this part up top here more times than I can count over the past few days, which is unlike me. But there’s only so much I can write about grief. There’s only so much I can say about these last 2.5 years of my life, which have tossed me like a rock in a tumbler — which smooths and polishes using abrasion, by the way, a description that feels right.
There’s a lot more to say about what’s left of summer, despite the tiny indications of fall that I’ve seen once or twice: how the corn has begun to shake out its blonde hair like a teenage girl, tasseling for all to see; how it’s raining cucumbers; how every kind of bee is spending all day getting drunk in the garden. There’s something to say about the world turning, and us with it, but I don’t feel up to writing about any of that, really, either.
Brushing my teeth yesterday morning, I turned to look at a little fortune cookie paper I tucked into a frame on my bathroom wall so long ago, I have no memory of when:
Dammit, I thought. Ugh. That’s true.
It is true. I know it’s true. I live my life by that truth, and it’s usually pretty easy for me to make the best of everything, mostly because I find the alternative exhausting — I don’t need one more drain on my energy, least of all pessimism or a willfully bad attitude — but sometimes I forget, because I’m juggling a bajillion balls and some days my grief feels unbearable and it’s so hot and the uncertainty of everything feels never-ending.
The thing about tumbled rocks is that they come out smooth, shiny, beautiful. They come out transformed. They come out somewhat the same shape but otherwise unrecognizable from how they went in. That this is accomplished by the addition of finer and finer grit — by grinding and tossing and shaking the shit out of one unrefined thing until it becomes another kind of thing altogether — is not lost on me.
I’m the rock in the tumbler, and I want to believe the world is, too. That this is the way of the seasons, and of the growth of one’s character (sometimes I am so over the growth of my character), and of life itself.
That accepting this is one way to make the best of everything.
That I will agree to do this, over and over again, even when I don’t like it and don’t want to.
That I will keep choosing to make the best of everything, despite it all.
To Be a Kid by Maya Ajmera and John Ivanko (1999)
🧒 Preschool–Early Reader (3–6)
I love this excellent nonfiction title for preschoolers and early elementary-aged children, not only for its interesting and diverse photography but for the uplifting messaging it offers. It begins, “To be a kid means being carried by those who love you…” and it’s hard not to take this literally (looking at pictures of children strapped to backs and riding on shoulders) and figuratively (absorbing that positive and loving message for what it is).
The whole book is like this, running the gamut of experiences common to children around the world, no matter where they are: from school and learning, to walking, listening to stories, having snacks, playing, running, making art, dancing. I think it’s important that kids know there are, at any given time, billions of other kids all over the earth goofing off, making friends, being loved and cared for by their families and communities — especially in an age where an overheard news story or adult conversation could make it seem otherwise.
This title is a visual and verbal celebration of all the goodness of childhood. And it’s an affirmation that childhood is — still, absolutely — something worth celebrating.
Babies on the Go by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Jane Dyer (2003)
🍼 Babies & Toddlers (0–3)
If you have a tiny animal lover, don’t miss this warm and loving celebration of how different animals carry their young — and how human caregivers do, too.
With Ashman’s gentle rhyming text and Dyer’s beautiful, soft watercolor illustrations, this book invites little ones to snuggle up and notice the many ways babies move through the world: tucked in pouches, perched on backs, cradled in arms. (I would often like to be tucked in a pouch, if not crawl straight back into the womb if I’m being honest.)
The tone is soothing, the imagery tender, and the concept deeply reassuring to babies and toddlers — this is a quiet charmer that affirms the bond between caregiver and child.
Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood (1982)
🍼 Babies & Toddlers (0–3)
🧒 Preschool–Early Reader (3–6)
Audrey and Don Wood have collaborated on some fabulous works, and while this title is lesser known than some of their more famous works, it deserves a spotlight.
Like The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear and Heckedy Peg — two totally different books for totally different age groups, the latter of which I reviewed in issue No. 46 — Quick as a Cricket does what the best picture books should do: creates a perfect marriage between the text and the illustrations.
Though the story here is merely imaginative rhyme — a young boy embodies all sorts of different animals and their chief characteristics (“I’m as cold as a toad, I’m as hot as a fox, I’m as weak as a kitten, I’m as strong as an ox”) — it’s a sunny, joyous celebration of self, and that’s why I like it. Best for older toddlers and preschoolers, this one is pure fun, through and through.
The Burning Season by Carolyn Starr Rose (2025)
📚 Middle Grade (9–12)
I love a smart, courageous, headstrong heroine in almost any context — I will read these types of tales in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, here, there, or anywhere — but when you add in some intense, life-and-death survival action and seemingly insurmountable odds, well, you have a story that is impossible to put down, and that’s exactly what this middle-grade novel-in-verse is.
12-year-old Opal has just started her training as a fourth-generation lookout deep in a wilderness area in New Mexico where she lives in a fire tower with her mother and grandmother. It’s a good life and she is grateful for the ways in which this unique upbringing has shaped her, but she has a burning desire (see what I did there?) and a secret: she wants to forgo this lonely existence to live in town and go to school, and she’s scared of fire.
And then one day, while her mother is away and her Gran has gone missing, an uncontrollable blaze breaks out.
I won’t give away the ending of this one, merely say it’s a fast-paced, thought-provoking thriller that will appeal to many 8 to 12-year-old readers, whether as a read-aloud or a read-alone.
(I spouted a lot of facts to my husband, who is certified as a wildland firefighter and spends several months a year intentionally starting fires during controlled burn season, which is to say there is a lot I didn’t know, and even some he didn’t know. I recommend this.)
Thanks for reading today! 📤
Sarah
“how the corn has begun to shake out its blonde hair like a teenage girl, tasseling for all to see; how it’s raining cucumbers; how every kind of bee is spending all day getting drunk in the garden” ❤️
I often tell my husband I’m done with all the growth garbage. “I get it already, life!”