Love is All You Need

by Pam Bloom  Rowan Public Library

My six year old granddaughter, Gracie, spent the weekend with me recently.  While we were outside she ran up and whispered, “Pretend I’m your new neighbor.” After discussing the merits of the neighborhood and promising to get together soon, she ran back and whispered, “Check your mailbox.” Inside I found a scrap of cardboard with the following note from my new neighbor.  “Dear Pam, Love is the best thing in life.” How true.

When’s the last time you read a love story? Not a bodice-ripping novel of lust, but stories of true love, stories for all ages. The following books found in the Children’s Room are much more than chapter books for children.  These books remind you why some books stay with you always and why stories can make the world a better place.  Don’t let the seemingly simple plots dissuade you from enjoying the complexity of the themes. Like many of today’s Young Adult selections, these books aren’t just for kids.

Instead of 50 Shades of Gray, read Carolyn Reeder’s book, Shades of Gray, set right after the Civil War. Young Will, now an orphan, has lost his father and brother in battle and his mother and sisters to typhoid.  Sent to live with his mother’s sister, he’s appalled to learn his Uncle Jed refused to fight the Yankees and is initially consumed with anger.  This is a great story filled with compelling themes of family, duty and love.

Jake, a novel by Audrey Couloumbis, also has a youngster dealing with unknown family. Jake’s widowed mom is in the hospital and he needs help from the granddad he only knows through two phone calls a year. This short novel is a great read aloud book and the story of family and human connections is a treat.

In The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang, Lucy believes her life is ruined when she has to share her bedroom for the next several months with her great-aunt visiting from China. The author weaves an interesting story of the many walls we build in our lives and how we overcome them.

Another book about the importance of family, Al Capone does my Shirts by Jennifer Choldenko is definitely more than a story set at Alcatraz. Moose’s family lives on the island where his father is a guard. Along with the subplot of trying to see Capone, Moose begins to understand that “When you love someone you have to try things even if they don’t make sense to anyone else.”

Additional titles of love that may have escaped your reading list include: Free Baseball by Sue Corbett, Operation Yes by Sara Holmes, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea, The Other Half of My Heart by Sundee T. Frazier, Jessie’s Mountain by Kerr Madden, Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson and Whirligig by Paul Fleischman.

According to Gracie, love is the best thing in life. It’s a universal theme. Check out some juvenile fiction books from Rowan Public Library.  You may just find the love you need.