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Chatterbox: Blab About Books
Touching and Heartbreaking Novels
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All describe the books we will talk about!
This page is about books that break your heart and change your life. Touching books, to be brief. I really love the books listed at the bottom, but since this page is about books that are moving, you can have ones that really make you cry.
The Sight: a totally awesome book about wolves in Transylvania (it has nothing to do with Twilight!). One has a special power that makes them sort of like an oracle, but more terrible in a strange way. This is moving because the vision in the end came true, but all the wolves hoped it wouldn't. I do not want to give anything away about the prophecy and its meaning, but just to let you know, two stanzas are wrong.
The Underneath: a great book. It is really weird, but lovely in its own way, because it echoes the real world (abused children, abandoned animals, etc.). It is for anybody who loves cats, dogs, Greek myths, first nations folklore, love stories, and vague endings. Look up Lamia to figure out the story behind the snake.
The Old Country: a book about shapeshifting. Amazing because it talks about the tragedy war can bring on not only humans, but nature too. Basically, the fox steals the girl's favourite chicken, and she goes out to kill it. But the fox and the girl switch minds, and there is this big war. Basically, in the end (yes, this is not a spoiler) something very weird happens that questions all that the reader, narrator and characters know.
submitted by Lauren B., age 11 yrs, Richmond BC
(May 14, 2010 - 11:35 pm)
(May 14, 2010 - 11:35 pm)
I really liked the
Little Freddy at the Kentucky Derby: It's about this little horse who's dream was to win the Kentucky Derby, but his mom gets sick and they have to go to the hospital, and then his mom almost dies, and then they have to get separated, and it's really sad if you love a good horse story. I loved the book.
(May 16, 2010 - 12:17 am)
I like "The Underneath", too. It's a good book. And very sad. I wish the mother cat didn't die. *Cries*
(May 16, 2010 - 4:20 pm)
I think Three Days by Donna Jo Napoli is sad. SPOILER ALERT: The main character's father dies and then she gets kidnapped. (However, it's NOT a mystery) And she can't communicate with anybody. It makes the reader want more, and it really is beautiful. But also a bit traumatic.
(May 16, 2010 - 4:34 pm)
Goodnight Mister Tom is also a good book. But I recommend it for 11+ because it has a bit of an innapropriate part that has to do with the human cycle. Otherwise, it's a very good and cryable book.
(May 16, 2010 - 6:59 pm)
I think that two of the heart breakingest books that I have ever read are called Milkweed and The Book Thief.
Milkweed, by Jerry Spinelli, is about a small Jewish boy growing up in Warsaw during the Holocaust. He doesn't have anything anymore, no parents, no home, not even a name. At first he lives with other homeless boys in an old stable, scavaging food, but then the men with the shiny boots come. They shove him behind walls, and he helps his friend, a little girl, and her family. This book made me cry, but then most of Jerry Spinelli's books do. Told in simple, elegant prose, it shows the impact of the Nazis from a young person's perspective.
The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak, is another touching story about the Holocaust. It's long, but I couldn't put it down (sorry to use a cliche!). Narrated by death him/herself, it tells the story of a little girl who is sent away to live with foster parents when living with her mother, whose husband was a communist, is too dangerous. Her brother dies on the train ride, and when they bury him, the girl steals her first book: The Gravedigger's Handbook. Living with a woman with a talent for calling people pigs and a tall man who plays the accordian, and befriending a boy who likes to run and tease her, the girl learns to read, and steals another few books. When her foster family hides a Jew in their basement, he makes a special book for the girl. The ending of this book was very sad, but hopeful too.
Sorry, my book reviews aren't very good.
(May 17, 2010 - 5:19 pm)
Actually, that was a better review of The Book Thief than I could have written. Yes, this could be counted as "a touching and heartbreaking novel". :)
Aaargh...there's this one book I read recently that should really be on here, but I can't remember what it's called! Only the story! I think we own it though, so I'll have to go look for it.
While we're on the topic of WWII and Holocaust books, I recommend I Am David, by Anne Holm, and Night, by Elie Wiesel.
(May 18, 2010 - 11:32 am)
Goodness yes, The Book Thief.
And I'll post more when I'm thinking clearer. /very tired
(May 18, 2010 - 3:34 pm)
I've read Goodnight Mister Tom, The Book Thief, and Milkweed too, and all three made me cry. They're really touching.
(May 18, 2010 - 6:27 pm)
I bawled my eyes out reading The Book Thief. It was that good. Dear John made me cry, too, but in an awww way, not a wahhh way.
(May 19, 2010 - 3:10 pm)
Thanks for the book suggestions!
Another touching book is The Color of Fire by Ann Rinaldi, about a black slave girl in the 1700s.
(May 19, 2010 - 11:38 am)
Unfortunately, I've never quite read a book that made me cry. Ah, well. I'll continue to try and search for 1. (I'm not saying I expect it to be a pleasant sensation—for I'm sure it won't be—; I'm saying that if a book makes you cry, it must be very well-written).
Milkweed was wonderful! I read it for school last year and loved it! Although of course it was sad.
I also read the 1st few pages of The Book Thief at a bookstore, because I'd heard it was good (from here, that is, not RL, athough I suppose it doesn't matter, so I don't know why I'm bothering to point it out), and it was excellent. I definitely plan to get it from the library and read the rest.
(May 19, 2010 - 4:42 pm)
Heartless creature. ;-)
The first book that made me cry was LWW, after Aslan -- well, you know.
I also cried at the end of HPB.
Tom and Carl in W@W nearly made me cry, but I just ended up having a sort of stomachache.
Another one I cried over was King of Shadows, by Susan Cooper. It's a sort of fantasy/hi-fi kind of thing. There's a boy named Nate who's playing Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Shakespeare play, in the replica of the Globe theater that they have in England. One morning he wakes up and he's gone back in time to the time of Shakespeare, and he's going to play the same roll in the real Globe. It was really good, I recommend it.
(May 20, 2010 - 6:35 am)
Oh, yeah, I really cried at the end of the Narnia Series. King of Shadows is really amazing, but I didn't think it was really heartbreaking.
Another touching book is called Celandine, by Steve Augarde. It is the second book of a series called the Touchstone Trilogy. In it it is 1915. Celandine Howard's brother is killed, she is suspected of being a witch, and her life at a boarding school in England is very miserable. She runs away and seeks refuge with magical little people that live in the woods by her house. Eventually she helps them get home to where they originally come from, after suffering what she thinks is a deep betrayal. She also discovers that the present is connected to both the past and the future in subtle ways.
It's very good and I recommend it.
CAPTCHA spam thingy says "eeki". Why are you screaming "eek" ?!
(May 20, 2010 - 5:37 pm)
Well, maybe heartbreaking isn't the word I'd use, but it was sad. Also, Little Women made me cry. (Side note: Do you think it's weird to have conversations with Jo? Out loud? Mighty Admin, what do you think?)
Unusual, maybe, but not really weird. I think it just means you were really moved by the story/character and that you are a sensitive person.
Admin (not sure how Mighty I am)
(May 21, 2010 - 8:51 pm)
The Color of Fire was very good. I've read many, many, many of her books, and all so far are excellent. ut yes, CoF was sad... As were many others.
(May 21, 2010 - 10:34 am)