By Eileen Spinelli
The one where a lonely, gray little man gets a mystery valentine, blossoms into a whole neighborhood's friend, and learns it was delivered by mistake — but by then the love is real.
Mr. Hatch is a quiet, gray man who does the same things every day, keeps to himself, and has no friends to speak of. Then one morning a large heart-shaped box of candy arrives with a note that says somebody loves him. He can't imagine who, but it changes everything: he starts smiling, baking, sharing, waving to neighbors he'd never spoken to, and slowly the whole street warms to him. Then the postman comes back to say the package was delivered to the wrong house, and Mr. Hatch folds back into his old gray self. But the neighbors he's befriended won't have it, and they arrive at his door to show him that now, mistake or not, somebody truly does love him.
This is the Valentine's book for a slightly older child, the one ready for a story with a shape and a lump in the throat. It says something a young child can feel: that being loved makes us braver and kinder, and that the kindness we give out comes back to find us. The middle stumble, when Mr. Hatch learns the valentine wasn't his, is what makes it more than sweet, because your child gets to feel the drop and then the lift. It's a warm, satisfying read-aloud that rewards a child who can sit with a real story, and it opens straight into a talk about who might be lonely on your own street.