Dreamy comfort books for children this spring and summer

‘Charlotte’s Web’ by EB White

Charlotte’s Web is one of the loveliest, most heartbreaking books of all time. It was written in 1952 with illustrations by Garth Williams. It is the story of an unlikely friendship of a pig named Wilbur, a little girl called Fern  and a spider named Charlotte. One day, Wilbur hears that he is destined to become Christmas dinner. To help save the pig, Charlotte spins messages about his talents overnight, hoping it will save him.  

Never have I been made to love spiders and pigs so much in my life. It is a beautiful story about friendship, love and death and simply being there for one another. It is such an inspiring book, and because of a the relationships between animals and humans it really seems to signify rebirth and Spring. It will make you appreciate every creature that lives among us.  

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

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‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams

Here’s a more heartfelt take:

The Velveteen Rabbit will wreck you — in the best possible way. A shabby, unloved toy rabbit gets clutched by a sick little boy, and somewhere in that desperate grip, something miraculous happens. He becomes Real. Williams understood what we adults keep forgetting: love isn’t pretty. It frays you, loosens your joints, rubs your fur clean off. But none of that matters once you’ve been truly needed by someone. Written in a world still raw from war and pandemic, this little book holds more grief and more hope than it has any right to.  

It’s a gorgeous read, for anyone looking to feel seen in the world, and will remind children that it’s okay to feel battered.

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.

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But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

‘The Tale of Despereaux’ by Kate DiCamillo

The Tale of Despereaux belongs to a mouse who has absolutely no business being a hero. Despereaux Tilling is too small, too sensitive, too earnest for his own good — and utterly, helplessly in love with a princess. DiCamillo builds her story around characters who are simply desperate to love and be loved: a king who bans soup from his entire kingdom because it reminds him of loss; a rat drawn fatally toward a light he was never meant to touch; a little mouse who arms himself with nothing but a sewing needle and an almost unreasonable amount of devotion.

It is a book about longing, about forgiveness, about the strange and stubborn courage it takes to keep your heart open in a world that keeps trying to close it. DiCamillo writes small creatures carrying impossibly large feelings, and she does it with such grace that you feel every single one of them.

“Despereaux," she whispered.

And then she shouted it, “Despereaux!"

Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.

Nothing.”