This book explores the feeling of sadness, how it can come and go, and ways to process and cope with the feeling. It explores one‘s experience with sadness and how to move through the feeling, validating that sadness is a normal emotion and a part of being human. I would 100% use this in my classroom, especially in an older grade. This book confronts a difficult topic and gives a starting point to discuss the complexity of emotions.

Caldecott Medal:Published in 1965, The Wave details an ancient Japanese folktale of a young boy who is taught by his grandfather to identify the warning signs of earthquakes and tsunamis before they happen. He uses this knowledge to predict an incoming earthquake and set his grandfather‘s crops on fire to warn the village. Villagers rush to aid the fire; and in turn reach higher ground and save themselves. The boy is forever remembered as a hero.