Books About Grief & Loss
Stories about death, loss, and learning to grieve — helping kids process difficult emotions.
487 books
This collection of 487 books about grief & loss spans picture books through Grade 12. Reading level alone doesn't tell parents whether a book is right for a child — text difficulty and emotional weight grow at different rates, especially for gifted, twice-exceptional, or sensitive readers. HootRated rates every book on this list for both, so you can match to your child's actual readiness on both axes.
Across this list, 13% of titles are rated Gentle or Mild — appropriate for sensitive readers or kids reading ahead of their emotional comfort zone. 25% are rated Intense or Very Intense, with heavier thematic territory for readers ready to tackle weighty subjects. Average content intensity for the list is 3.1/5.
Use the intensity badges (color-coded green → red) to filter by emotional readiness rather than just age. For more on what each intensity level means, see our rating methodology.
A fox
Alice K. Flanagan
A pet
Alice K. Flanagan
Cats
Frances E. Ruffin
Frozen
Elle D. Risco
John F. Kennedy
Hourly History
Junior Spy
Kiara Kattler
Love in the Library
Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Picture Book of Anne Frank
David A. Adler
Pollyanna
Peterson
The Story of Anne Frank (Lifetimes)
Stewart Ross
When a Pet Dies
Fred Rogers
Where the Red Fern Grows
Novel Units Inc.
The fall of the house of Usher
Matthew K. Manning
George Washington
Candice F. Ransom
Shipwreck Saturday
Bill Cosby
Peter Pan
Susan Hill Long
Plants vs. zombies
Paul Tobin
You've Found Oliver
Dustin Thao
A little princess
Cathy East Dubowski
Gymnastics
Kara L. Laughlin
Little fish
Ralph Moisa
The giving tree
Shel Silverstein
Promo/little princess
Deborah Hautzig
Star Wars
W. Haden Blackman
Star wars, episode III, revenge of the Sith
Miles Lane
My Little Pony : Friendship Is Magic
Katie Cook
Batman
John Sazaklis
Green Lantern
Matthew K. Manning
Transformers
Simon Furman
A picture for Patti
Linda K. Garvey
Across 5 Aprils
Alexander S. Frazier, Center for Learning Network Staff, Irene Hunt
Almost home
Joan Bauer
Bookclub Presenter
Marilyn Herbert, Samantha Bailey
Camel Bells
Janne Carlsson
Day I Saw My Father Cry
Bill Cosby
I Survived the Nazi Invasion 1944
Lauren Tarshis
Karen's goldfish
Ann M. Martin
Karen's wish
Ann M. Martin
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Eleanor Coerr
South Africa 19481994
Rosemary Mulholland
The Giving Tree
Shel Silverstein
The Holocaust
Stuart A. Kallen
The Slave Dancer
Paula Fox
World History Biographies: Anne Frank
Ann Kramer
Presidents' Day
David F. Marx
Tonight on the Titanic
Mary Pope Osborne
Max and the Midknights
Lincoln C. Peirce
Superman
Matthew K. Manning
William Tell
Paul D. Storrie
New moon
Young Kim
Outside the Box
Heather Schwartz
Sled dogs
McGinty, Alice B.
The professional
Robert B. Parker
A chair for my mother
Vera B. Williams
Earthworms
Adele Richardson
Cheetah
Matthew K. Manning
Halloween
Charles C. Hofer
High Heat
Carl Deuker
Just a drop of water
Kerry O'Malley Cerra
The Maze of Bones
Rick Riordan
The snow walker
Margaret K. Wetterer
Defiance
Chris Mowry
Serafina's promise
Ann E. Burg
Squanto and the first Thanksgiving
Joyce K. Kessel
The best cat in the world
Lesléa Newman
The cat from Hunger Mountain
Ed Young
The promise quilt
Candice F. Ransom
Hurricane Katrina Dogs
Michele Dufresne
John Cena
Daniel B. Aiwei
Python
Natalie K. Humphrey
Sulfur Heart
Brooke Carter
Frida Kahlo
Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Jane Eyre
Jane E. Gerver
Little Audrey
Ruth White
Our Canadian Girl Penelope #2 the Glass Castle
Sharon E Mckay
The Accuser
Anne E. Schraff
The distance between lost and found
Kathryn Holmes
Three against the tide
D. Anne Love
Elfangor's Secret
Katherine Applegate
Little Miss Strange
Joanna Rose
Little in Love
Susan E. Fletcher
Stranded
Patricia H. Rushford
Charlie Wilcox's Great War
Sharon E. McKay
Missouri
Patricia K. Kummer
Night Whispers
Erin Hunter
Penguins
Emilie U. Lepthien
Poor Mallory! (The Baby-Sitters Club #39)
Ann M. Martin
Pure Spring
Brian Doyle
Sara lost and found
Virginia Castleman
The Parable of the Talents
Nicole E. Dreyer
Armstrong & Charlie
Frank, Steven
Cardinals
James E. Gerholdt
Children of the Civil War
Candice F. Ransom
Gaby, lost and found
Angela Cervantes
Letters to the lost
Brigid Kemmerer
Little women
Mary Sebag-Montefiore
Scattered dust
Ann E. Burg
Tallstar's revenge
Erin Hunter
The underground
Jerry B. Jenkins
Constellations
Marcia Zappa
Epileptic
David B.
Hush money
Robert B. Parker
Little lost bat
Sandra Markle
Maya Angelou
Lisbeth Kaiser
New York
Dennis B. Fradin
Slant
Laura E. Williams
Wild horses
Lynn M. Stone
Abandoned (Jennie Mcgrady Mysteries)
Patricia H. Rushford
Children of the dust days
Karen Mueller Coombs
Dear America:My Heart is on the Ground: the Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl, Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, 1880
Ann Rinaldi
Flawless
Sara Shepard
Impact
James C. Dekker
Kansas
Dennis B. Fradin
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
Pasadena
Sherri L. Smith
School of the Dead
Avi
Star wars
Archie Goodwin
Under Shifting Stars
Alexandra Latos
A dog called Homeless
Sarah Lean
Arkansas
Dennis B. Fradin
John Adams
Sneed B. Collard
Kissed by an Angel (Kissed by an Angel 1)
Chandler
Mustang Flats
G. Clifton Wisler
Nevada
Dennis B. Fradin
We Were Liars
E. Lockhart
Abraham Lincoln
Ellen Blue Phillips
An exile
Madison Jones
Anne Frank
Isabel Sanchez Vegara
BIRD; TRANS. BY JENNY WANG MEDINA.
CHONG-HUI O
Boy Who Didn't Want to Die
Peter Lantos
Brazil
King, David C.
Child survival under threat
Dominic E. Azuh
Dead beautiful
Yvonne Woon
Dear Canada: Orphan at My Door: The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope, Guelph, Ontario, 1897
Jean Little
Early Sunday Morning
Barry Denenberg
Elsie's troubled times
Martha Finley
Fire, Bed and Bone
Henrietta Branford
Flutter
Erin E. Moulton
George Washington
Candice F. Ransom
Hatchet
Gary Paulsen
Hostage to War
Tat'Iana Vasil'Eva
I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 (Graphic Novel)
Lauren Tarshis
Ireland
Edward Lengel
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
Little Pawny
Doctor Chess
Little Women
Deanna McFadden
Littsie of Cincinnati
Jinny Powers Berten; Norah Holt
Lord of the Nutcracker men
Iain Lawrence
My Dear Phebe
Janet Elaine Smith
My Own Lightning
Lauren Wolk
Pieces of the picture
Barbara M. Joosse
Prisoner B-3087
Alan Gratz
Razor eyes
Richard Alexander Hough
Reena
Manjit Virk
Safe at home
Glenda Brost
Silent witness
Patricia H. Rushford
Sojourner Truth
Patricia McKissack
Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
The Clay Marble
Minfong Ho
The Fence
Robin Friedman
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Night Swimmers
Betsy Byars
The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton
The Peculiar
Stefan Bachmann
The journal of James Edmond Pease, a Civil War Union soldier
Murphy, Jim
The juvenile novels of World War II
Desmond Taylor
The middle passage and the revolt on the Amistad
Susan K. Baumann
Trash Mountain
Jane Yolen
Until the End of Summer
Elizabeth Ogilvie
Who Killed Christopher Goodman?: Based on a True Crime
Allan Wolf
Wolves
Heather C. Hudak
World War II
Doug Williams
Year of Impossible Goodbyes
Sook Nyul Choi
Brave Kitten
Holly Webb
Bridge to Terabithia
Katherine Paterson
Over the edge
Patricia H. Rushford
Soulmates
Elizabeth Chandler
Windy City danger
Jerry B. Jenkins
Book of Monsters
Ameet Studio Staff
Claudia and the Sad Good-bye (The Baby-Sitters Club #26)
Ann M. Martin
Evercrossed
Elizabeth Chandler
Inca Mummies: Sacrifices And Rituals (Edge Books: Mummies)
Michael Martin
L. M. Montgomery
Ma Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Little women
Louisa May Alcott
Mary Anne and the memory garden
Ann M. Martin
Shining Prince (Summit Books)
Susan Grohmann
So tall within
Gary D. Schmidt
The Tsunami Quilt
Anthony D. Fredericks
The little match girl
Jerry Pinkney
These shallow graves
Jennifer Donnelly
Twisted
Sara Shepard
Whatever happened to Janie?
Caroline B. Cooney
Australia
Lewis K. Parker
Bats
Linda C. Wood
Dear Canada : Exiles from the War
Jean Little
Dust of the earth
Donna L. Hess
Formula 1
Tyrone Georgiou
Illusion
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Legend
Marie Lu
Light
Ian F. Mahaney
Rose's journal
Marissa Moss
The Blackbird Girls
Unknown
The Shipping News
Annie Proulx
What Janie found
Caroline B. Cooney
Angels of Bataan and Corregidor
Agnieszka Biskup
Arkansas
Patricia K. Kummer
How I found the Strong
Margaret McMullan
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
The jungle book
Rudyard Kipling
The secret garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The secret life of Prince Charming
Deb Caletti
A little princess
Tania Zamorsky
Ariana Grande
Heather E. Schwartz
Circle of secrets
Kimberley Griffiths Little
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Death
Gail Stewart
Durinda's Dangers
Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Levi Strauss
Elsie Olson
Lost girl found
Leah Bassoff
Shadows of the Clans
Erin Hunter
When the World Turned Upside Down
K. Ibura
A Father's Promise
Donna L. Hess
A little piece of ground
Elizabeth Laird
A little princess
Eliza Gatewood Warren
Cathy's Key
Sean Stewart
Heartless
Sara Shepard
Highland mercies
Gary E. Parker
Kiss the dust
Elizabeth Laird
Perils of Love (Left Behind. the Kids)
Jerry B. Jenkins
Prince across the water
Jane Yolen
Second chance
L. Divine
An elephant in the garden
Michael Morpurgo
Attack on Petra
Jerry B. Jenkins
Beauty is a beast
Jane B. Mason
California Gold Rush and The '49ers
Jean F. Blashfield
If I die before I wake
Jean Little
James and the giant peach
Roald Dahl
Pollyanna
Eleanor Hodgman Porter
Prince William
Tamara L. Britton
Teens in prison
Gail Stewart
The eighth day
Dianne K. Salerni
The emperor of any place
Tim Wynne-Jones
The stranger game
Cylin Busby
20 Fun Facts about Alexander Hamilton
M. H. Seeley
Chocolate
Samuel G. Woods
Frederick Douglass
George Edward Stanley
In my father's house
Brock Thoene
Man in the iron mask
Raymond H. Harris
Mr. Lincoln's drummer
G. Clifton Wisler
Prince William
Elaine Landau
The Romeo and Juliet code
Phoebe Stone
The beginning of after
Jennifer Castle
The chosen prince
Diane Stanley
The man in the iron mask
Thomas, Roy
The wind in the willows
Kenneth Grahame
Treasures in the dust
Tracey Porter
Unforgettable Catastrophes
Unknown
Yellowfang's secret
Jean Little
Armageddon
Tim F. LaHaye
Away
Megan E. Freeman
Battered women
Gail B. Stewart
Frozen
Mary Casanova
Left behind
Jerry B. Jenkins
Little house in Brookfield
Maria D. Wilkes
Lost and found
Dawn Purney
On Top Of Concord Hill
Maria D. Wilkes
The mark
Tim F. LaHaye
What Was the Hindenburg?
Janet B. Pascal
Courtin' Jayd
L. Divine
Days of blood & starlight
Laini Taylor
Forced Removal
Heather E. Schwartz
Left behind
Tim F. LaHaye
North of happy
Adi Alsaid
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Otherwise known as Possum
Maria D. Laso
Tales from Shakespeare
Marcia Williams
The Girl the Sea Gave Back
Adrienne Young
The invisible man
H. G. Wells
Things we know by heart
Jessi Kirby
What Was the Great Depression?
Janet B. Pascal, Who HQ
Who was Abraham Lincoln?
Janet B. Pascal
Cat running
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Grand Canyon
Linda Vieira
Little soldier
Bernard Ashley
Mummies
Henrietta McCall
Pearl Harbor
Tamara L. Britton
These is My Words
Nancy Turner
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
A list of things that didn't kill me
Jason Schmidt
George Washington
Stuart A. Kallen
Hatchet
Gary Paulsen
Let the circle be unbroken
Mildred D. Taylor
Sour Land (Harper Trophy Books)
William H. Armstrong
The Giver
Lois Lowry
The Giver
Lois Lowry
The best little girl in the world
Steven Levenkron
The journal of C.J. Jackson
William Durbin
Trouble
Gary D. Schmidt
With open hands
Jeri Ferris
A Little Tiger in the Chinese Night
Song Nan Zhang
Bill Nye
Tamra B Orr
Birds of Paradise
Irena Hoare
Feed the Children First
Mary E. Lyons
Oprah Winfrey
Tamra B. Orr
The sin eater
Gary D. Schmidt
What girls are made of
Elana K. Arnold
A New Beginning
John Flanagan
A dangerous path
Jean Little
Comfort Dogs
Natalie Lunis
Prince William
Kristin McCracken
Slavery in America
Jean F. Blashfield
The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 2)
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Wednesday wars
Gary D. Schmidt
The glass castle
Jeannette Walls
Wild horses
John Bonnett Wexo
A Separate Peace
John Knowles - undifferentiated
Across Five Aprils
Irene Hunt
Amil and the After
Veera Hiranandani
Anne Frank
Frank
Barefoot in Fire
Barbara-Ann Gamboa Lewis
Blood and Chocolate
Annette Curtis Klause
Bullyville
Francine Prose
Catalyst
Laurie Halse Anderson
Clara Callan
Richard Bruce Wright
Covenant
Abraham Verghese
DAUGHTER OF THE KILLING FIELDS: ASREI'S STORY.
THEARY C. SENG
Dream on, Amber (reissue)
Emma Shevah
Emily for Real
Sylvia Gunnery
Eyes
Sakae Tsuboi
Families Without Fathers
David Popenoe
Hooligans or rebels?
Stephen Humphries
If I Stay
Gayle Forman
Little Cricket
Jackie Brown
Malcolm X
Walter Dean Myers
Moon at Apogee
Evelyn Rota
Mourning a Father Lost
Avraham Balaban
Secret World of Sex
Steve Humphries
Seed Time (Signature)
Nick Manns
The Austere Academy
Lemony Snicket
The Battle of Little Bighorn (Kaleidoscope)
Edward F. Dolan
The Castaways
Iain Lawrence
The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13)
Lemony Snicket
The Good Braider
Terry Farish
The Growth of the British Empire (Yesterday's Classics)
Margaret Bertha Synge
The Legacy
Lurlene Mcdaniel
The Penultimate Peril
Lemony Snicket
The Stone Goddess
Minfong Ho
The Vile Village (A Series of Unfortunate Events #7)
Lemony Snicket
The dream of water
Kyoko Mori
The lion in the lei shop.
Kaye Starbird
The lovely bones
Alice Sebold
The pull of gravity
Gae Polisner
Ultraviolet (Ultraviolet, #1)
R. J. Anderson
Wandering Souls
Cecile Pin
Youth in cities
Marta Tienda, William Julius Wilson
Challenger
Michael D. Cole
China's son
Chen, Da
Gulliver's travels
Jonathan Swift
Haunted Houses
Robert D. San Souci
Marilyn Monroe
Katherine E. Krohn
Tales from Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Beginning of Everything
Robyn Schneider
The Farthest Shore (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 3)
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer
The fallen.
Tom Sniegoski
White Fang
Jack London
Everything you need to know when someone you know has been killed
Jay Schleifer
Infandous
Elana K. Arnold
My Family For the War
Anne C. Voorhoeve
People with AIDS
Gail Stewart
The Columbia space shuttle disaster
Michael D. Cole
The orphan trains
Alice K. Flanagan
The rapture
Tim F. LaHaye
Mary, Bloody Mary
Carolyn Meyer
Prince of tides
Pat Conroy
Stones For My Father
Trilby Kent
Alexandra Scott
Gail B. Stewart
Food
Peter D. Riley
John McCain
Heather E. Schwartz
Pearl Harbor Warriors
Dorinda Makanaonalani Stagner Nicholson
The Comeback Season
Jennifer E. Smith
Unbroken
Laura Hillenbrand
World War II
Mary Pope Osborne
Absolute brightness
James Lecesne
Little Crow: Taoyateduta
Gwenyth Swain
Morning Star
Pierce Brown
Red Rising
Pierce Brown
The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank
The Flamboya Tree
Clara Kelly
Wild
Cheryl Strayed
Democratic Nominee TBD
Heather E. Schwartz
Greenland
Jean F. Blashfield
Pope John Paul II
George Edward Stanley
Unsinkable!
Michael D. Cole
A wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Miracle Season
Kathy Bresnahan
You are here
Jennifer E. Smith
Watch me rise
Douglas E. Luffborough
Little Bighorn, June 25, 1876
Brendan January
The Salem witchcraft trials in American history
David K. Fremon
The fallen.
Tom Sniegoski
A Book of Plays
RINEHART AND WINSTON HOLT
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
Belonging
Michelle Miller
Bindi
Paul Matthew Maisano
Coram Boy
Jamila Gavin
Esperanza rising
Pam Muñoz Ryan
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
J. K. Rowling
How young they died
Stuart Cloete
Plain Tales from the Hills
Rudyard Kipling
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Mildred D. Taylor
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel
Supernormal
Meg Jay
The Color Purple
Alice Walker
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
Walk Two Moons
Sharon Creech
Wednesday Wars
Gary Schmidt
Remember Little Bighorn
Paul Robert Walker
George Washington
Wim Coleman
Parallel journeys
Eleanor H. Ayer
The Battle of the Little Bighorn in American history
Nancy Warren Ferrell
The L.A. riots
Michael D. Cole
Abraham & Mary Todd Lincoln
Ruth Ashby
Causes and effects of the American Civil War
G. O'Muhr
Japanese-American internment in American history
David K. Fremon
Apollo 1 Tragedy
Paul Brubaker
Australia
Jean F. Blashfield
Dust to eat
Michael L. Cooper
Ice Age Mammoth
Barbara Hehner
Louisa May Alcott
Karen Clemens Warrick
Snow dog
Jim Kjelgaard
Years of dust
Albert Marrin
Beloved
Toni Morrison
Drew Barrymore
Hill, Anne E.
Ecstasy
Tamra Orr
Reckoning
Tom Sniegoski
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
John Boyne
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
George Washington
Sari Earl
In the wild
Sneed B. Collard
The faithful spy
John Hendrix
TWA flight 800
Michael D. Cole
The Beautiful and Damned
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mystery of Mary Rogers (Treasury of Victorian Murder (Graphic Novels))
Rick Geary
John Lennon
David K. Wright
The Dust Bowl
Sue Vander Hook
Joshua Chamberlain and the American Civil War
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
America Pathways to the Present
Andrew Robert Lee Cayton
Ben Y and the Ghost in the Machine
K. A. Holt
Cry Korea cry
Ty Pak
Divergent
Veronica Roth
Egg and Spoon
Gregory Maguire
George Washington Carver (Discovery Biographies)
Peggy Thomas
Homecoming
Cynthia Voigt
If He Had Been with Me
Laura Nowlin
In his father's footsteps
Danielle Steel
Katz-Cohen
Samuel Astrachan
Kezzie at War (pod)
Theresa BRESLIN
Negro's Civil War How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union
James M. McPherson
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
Song of the road
Dorothy Garlock
The Bee Gees
Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook, Andrew Môn Hughes
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
White Gardenia
Belinda Alexandra
The Way People Live - Life During the Dust Bowl (The Way People Live)
Diane Yancey
The dust bowl and the Depression in American history
Debra McArthur
Flags in the dust
William Faulkner
People in the News - Lance Armstrong (People in the News)
John F. Grabowski
Citizen soldiers
Stephen E. Ambrose
Wyatt Earp
William L. Urban
I Came As a Stranger
Bryan Prince
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Hull
George Washington
Daniel C. Gedacht
Robert Smalls
Robert Francis Kennedy
Christopher Reeve
Margaret L. Finn
Martin Luther King, Jr.
John F. Wukovits
The Last Stand
Nathaniel Philbrick
The Children of Men
P. D. James
Muhammad
Marilyn Tower Oliver
Australia
John F. Grabowski
African American civil rights movement
World Book, Inc
Ulysses
James Joyce
Questions parents ask about this list
- What's on this books about grief & loss list?
- Books About Grief & Loss contains 487 books spanning picture books through Grade 12. Stories about death, loss, and learning to grieve — helping kids process difficult emotions. Every book on the list is rated for reading level and content intensity so you can pick what matches your child.
- What age range is appropriate for this list?
- Books on this list span picture books through Grade 12. 64 books (13%) are rated Gentle or Mild; 121 (25%) are rated Intense or Very Intense. Average intensity is 3.1/5. Match the intensity badge to your child's emotional readiness.
- How is this list curated?
- HootRated rates every book on this list for both reading level (text difficulty) and content intensity (emotional weight) — the two axes parents need to choose books. See our methodology for how books make a curated list.