Book Highlight: The Rabbit Listened • 別傷心，我會陪著你

I love love love this book.

It's so simple, and so sweet.

A little boy named Tyler (my guess only lol, based on the translation of 泰勒) builds a beautiful castle he's very proud of, out of wooden blocks.

Something bad happens and it all gets knocked over. Tyler is devastated.

Various animals come up and try to offer up their own methods of coping, but none of them made him feel better. Until Rabbit came along and just listened. And that was all he needed ♥️

It's a very simple book with very little words, suitable for younger toddlers, especially with the animal illustrations.

There's definitely a deeper message in this one that can be a discussion point with older kids. e.g. sometimes bad things happen (I actually really like how the book doesn't go into WHY his blocks got destroyed or whose fault it was; it just happened. Life is like that sometimes).

Or the idea that when someone is sad, it's ok to let them grieve. All they need is for someone to be there... not doing anything in particular but to just listen.

When I first introduced the book to my son at 26mo, he was not at the place developmentally for these discussions, but he very much enjoyed the story on its own!

I also think having stories like these in his "mind space" actually helps in my other interactions with him. For example, he loves building stuff with Lego or train tracks and whatnot, but they inevitably topple over, and he'd get frustrated.

During these moments, I can say things like, 「係啊，冧晒喇 😞 你記唔記得泰勒呀？」He'd pause and reflect: we'd talk about the story, and then we figure out how we want to deal with his Lego together (e.g. we can sit for a bit, we can rebuild, we can play with something else...).

Mind you, bringing up the book doesn't *always* work, but pretty neat when it does 😛

Get it here: The Rabbit Listened • 別傷心，我會陪著你