Last summer, my wife and I took our kids to Reader’s World, a wonderful bookstore in Holland, Mich. I watched my son and daughter head straight to the children’s section, where they began pulling down options and building small sand castles of books. Eventually Henry, our oldest, brought over a paperback I hadn’t heard of, a novel much thicker than the chapter books he usually read. He climbed into our bed and onto my chest, his small body shaking, his crying so intense he couldn’t speak. Finally, he managed a single sentence: “Dad, why did ‘The Wild Robot’ have to be sad?”

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Persons: Henry, he’d Locations: Holland, Mich, Lake Michigan