By Holly M. McGhee
A girl frightened by the anger and hatred on the news asks her father what she can do about it. He doesn't explain it. He says come with me, puts on his coat, and takes her out into the neighborhood.
The news is on, full of anger and hatred, and a girl watching it asks her papa what she can do to make things better. He doesn't explain the news to her. He says come with me, puts on his coat, and they ride the subway together while he tips his hat to the people around them and she watches. The next day her mama does the same, walking with her to the store, and mama says out loud that no one person stands for everybody who looks like them. Then the girl tries it on her own. She knocks on the door across the hall and says come with me to a boy she's never spoken to, and the two of them walk the dog around the block by themselves. Holly McGhee wrote it after the Brussels bombings, with the memory of September 11 behind it, and Pascal Lemaître drew it in ink and watercolor so the setting looks like an ordinary city neighborhood.
If your child has seen something ugly on a screen and wants to know what to do about it, this book was written right at that problem, and there aren't many like it. What makes it work is what it leaves out. It never explains the event, so your child isn't handed more than they already saw on the news. And it never tells the girl not to worry, which a frightened child tends to hear as a lie anyway. What it offers instead is small enough to actually hold: walk somewhere, be kind to a stranger, knock on the door across the hall. Those are things a young child can do this week. And the girl does all three herself, without a grown-up steering her.