Shelter for sadness

A little boy creates a shelter for his grief, a safe space where grief is welcome, where it can curl up as small, or be as big as possible, where it can be loud or quiet, or anything in between. The boy can visit the shelter whenever he needs to—every day, sometimes every hour—and the two of them will cry and talk or just sit and say nothing. The boy knows that one day Grief might just leave the shelter, and together they will look out at the world and see how beautiful it is. A moving and heartwarming picture book that explores the importance of making space and time for our grief, both small and big, sensitively illustrated by David Litchfield's stunning illustrations. Anne Booth was inspired to write this book by the words of Ettie Hilsum, a Holocaust victim who wrote: “Give your grief all the space and shelter in yourself that it deserves, for if everyone bore grief honestly and courageously, the grief that now fills the world would be lessened. But if instead you reserved most of the space within yourself for hatred and thoughts of revenge—from which new griefs for others would be born—grief would never cease in this world. And if you have given grief the space it needs, you can truly say: Life is so beautiful and so rich.” (Esther “Ettie” Hilsum (January 15, 1914 – November 30, 1943)