By Felicia Bond
The one where hearts fall from the sky like rain and a little girl catches them to make just the right valentine for each of her animal friends.
One day Cornelia Augusta looks up and it's raining hearts. Big ones, small ones, striped and speckled ones, drifting down out of the sky. She runs out and catches an apronful, and instead of just piling them up, she looks at each one and figures out exactly who it's meant for. A lacy one for a friend who likes lace, a long one for a dog whose ears are long, and on it goes until every animal she loves has the valentine that's perfectly, particularly theirs. It's a soft, quiet little book from the illustrator of the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books, all about noticing the people you love well enough to pick the right heart.
Small children love the whole conceit before you even explain it, because it's raining valentines and that's just delightful. But the reason it lands as a Valentine's gift is the quiet lesson underneath: Cornelia doesn't hand out hearts at random, she matches each one to the animal it suits, which is exactly what it means to love someone in particular rather than in general. Felicia Bond's art is warm and familiar, and the story is short and gentle enough for the very youngest, so it reads beautifully at bedtime and folds straight into a craft afternoon with paper and scissors.