Cloud Babies: Sometimes All We Need to Do Is Look Up

Gr 1-3–The subtitle says it all: when you are feeling low, looking up might be the best thing to do. Erin loves looking at the clouds and finding animal shapes. This game, which she calls “cloud babies,” is shared with her mom and dad. When she becomes sick and needs to spend an extended period of time in the children’s ward at the hospital, she shares the cloud babies game with other children as well as with her family. Her adjustment to life after the hospital is difficult, and Erin feels a need to “catch up” to her friends at school. Playing cloud babies is too juvenile for her schoolmates. The reconciliation between her two worlds and her conflicting needs is resolved by the story’s end, with a visit by her schoolmates to the children’s ward at the hospital. Inspired by the illustrator’s family experience with illness, this reassuring tale will be useful for children in similar straits as well as for classmates who need to strengthen their empathy skills to welcome and support classmates returning from such absences.