Love You Forever

Thirty-five million copies is not an accident — this book does something few picture books attempt, which is hold a mother's love and a child's mortality in the same breath without crushing either. The repeating lullaby is pure magic for small children, even as the final pages hit adults somewhere deeper. The nighttime-rocking scene reads oddly to some grown-ups but children have always found it funny rather than creepy, and the grief that inspired it gives every page an authenticity that cannot be manufactured.