Book Recommendation: Grief is an Elephant

Grief can be hard to describe—especially for children—but Tamara Ellis Smith gives us a powerful metaphor in Grief is an Elephant. This beautifully illustrated picture book compares grief to an elephant: enormous, ever-present, sometimes gentle and sometimes wild. The text is poetic, with a rhythm that invites quiet reflection, and the illustrations by Nancy Whitesides offer both emotional weight and moments of lightness.

What I love most is how the book doesn’t try to rush through grief or explain it away. Instead, it honors it. The elephant becomes a companion, one that changes over time. This makes the book not only a comforting resource for children experiencing loss, but also a conversation starter—a way for families or classrooms to talk about emotions that often feel too big for words.

Contemplative Play Prompt:
Invite your child (or yourself) to draw what their grief feels like. If it were an animal, what would it be? What does it do? Where does it live? Let the image unfold slowly. No need to explain—just notice.