ALWAYS REMEMBER

A sequel to a beloved fable reiterates basic truths about kindness, courage, and self-esteem.

It looks like a children’s picture book, it reads like a children’s picture book, but as the author tells us in his handwritten introduction—all the text is in slightly hard-to-read pen-and-ink cursive, which is the most grown-up thing about it—“This book is for everyone, whatever age you are, and I hope it helps you remember that you are loved, and you matter. You are brave and magnificent.” Well, to some of its brave and magnificent readers it will nonetheless seem like the kind of thing you would read to a child between Love You Forever and Go the F**k To Sleep. Yet the facts say otherwise: Its quite similar predecessor, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2019), was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. It has been translated into more than 50 different languages and dialects and spawned myriad offshoots in art and commerce. Perhaps this is because it hits the exact intersection of the sort of positive messages delivered by children’s literature and the greatest hits of self-help and spiritual affirmation. To wit: “One of the kindest things you can do is be gentle with yourself.” “I know my mind can play tricks on me, and tell me that it’s all hopeless. But I need to remember who I am; that I am loved, I matter and I bring to this world things no one else can.” Perhaps every age needs its Jonathan Livingston Seagull. There’s a good running joke about a mole who can’t stop eating cake, but then the recipe for the cake (a handful of humility, a jug of joy, etc.) kind of ruins it.

There is surely someone you know who would love this book.