By Maria Shriver
The one where a girl who loves her grandpa's stories notices he's telling the same one over and over, and learns the word Alzheimer's.
Kate loves her grandfather's stories more than almost anything. But lately he's been telling the same one again and again, as if it's the first time each time, and one day he can't remember Kate's name at all. Kate is confused and a little scared, so her mother sits her down and explains, gently but honestly, what's happening: Grandpa has Alzheimer's, a sickness that slowly takes a person's memories. Kate has questions, a lot of them, about her grandpa, about growing old, about what comes next. And then she decides to do something about it. She and Grandpa sit down together with a box of old photographs and build a scrapbook of their whole life together, so the memories live somewhere safe even on the days Grandpa can't hold them himself.
This is the most explaining book on the shelf. It's built to answer the actual questions a child asks when a grandparent is diagnosed, with a mother who doesn't dodge a single one. For a slightly older child who wants to understand rather than just be soothed, it gives real information first and then a real project, the scrapbook, that turns the worry into something to do with their hands.