100 books like The Astonishing Color of After

So, this book was made into two movies, the first in 1981 and the other in 2002, but I first experienced this story by reading the book when I was a young girl in sixth grade in 1978. I remember reading the epilogue over and over again—it broke my heart to think how the greed of one man could ruin something so magical. I pondered whether it was a blessing or a curse to live forever, and the town of Treegap felt like it could exist in any wooded place. Whenever I find myself in a thick forest, I still search for springs that bubble up from the ground, taking me right back to those emotions when reading this great classic.

Carolina walks a fine line between reality and magic, a state of mind many a struggling child understands.

Stuck with her grandfather, whose mind is failing, she finds a special connection to the fantastical stories he tells of a lake and bees and a tree, all connected with love of family and one’s roots. She forms a special bond with her “crazy” grandfather.

His stories about the tree with the magical power to bring people back together especially rings true. Who doesn’t believe in the magic of trees, especially old trees with deep roots (I still do). When Carolina rescues her grandfather from the old folks home and convinces her parents not to sell the family ranch, everything comes together.

Reality and magic really do belong together.

Something about the cover called to me from an airport bookshelf—I just knew it was about grief.

Using the reminisce of a 40-year-old attending a funeral, this story illustrates the strangeness of human connection and its unassuming power. Much of the book is a mourning of lost memory, lost friendships, and lost innocence as time has carried the boy he was to the unfamiliar, sterile territory of middle age.

He had somehow forgotten encountering otherworldly evil and watching horrors unfold around him. He’d nearly lost his life. Apart from the sacrifice of one special someone, his story would have ended at age 11. And he’d forgotten.

The antagonist of this story is incredibly creepy, but that’s not the chord that struck deepest for me. It was the stinging, metallic smell of grief that soaks every page that made this a story I’ll never forget. 

The Waverley women all possess magical abilities.

Claire, as a caterer, can alter moods by cooking with her edible flowers. Even their garden is delightfully eccentric, with an apple tree whose fruit possesses prophetic abilities. Although I adored the journeys of the major characters, my favorite character is Evanelle. This elderly relative experiences irresistible impulses to bring objects to people.

Often it's something ordinary, like a kitchen tool, though sometimes it’s more substantial. Neither Evanelle nor the recipients understand her need to share the object, but the recipients soon invariably require it; at times, it changes their lives.

I’ve read Garden Spells several times, and though I now know what will happen, I still never want the novel to end. Seeped in magic and thoroughly enchanting.

This is a collection of poems, most of which were written shortly after the death of her son by suicide. They are all about grief and love. They feel so true and honest and heartbreakingly naked.

Reading these poems makes me want to write poems about my own grief, because her words are so exactly right and to the point. I feel seen in these poems. She inspires me to articulate my own feelings, and have my own honest encounter with my grief.

Luna’s Red Hat does a fantastic job of explaining suicide to its readers in a way that is blameless and sensitive, delicate but not sugar-coated. It’s a hard topic to talk about, especially with children or people who haven’t ever felt suicidal themselves. You can tell in the way that Luna and her father talk to each other and about Luna’s mother that this was and is a very close and loving family, and that nobody is to blame for Luna’s mother taking her own life. This book has been a big inspiration for me. I hope I am able to write about mental health and other difficult topics with as much grace as Emmi does in this book.

He describes the death of his partner from alcoholism and the events leading up to it in an unflinchingly honest and moving way. It's raw and personal but that's what grief is. It's beautiful and respectful and shows how grief is both a shared experience and so completely individual at the same time. 

I’m in two minds about this recommendation: on the one hand, it’s one of the few commercially successful books that deals with the loss of a grandparent head-on, while managing to do it in a vibrant, rich book that a child reader is likely to enjoy and request again and again. Benji Davies’ beautiful, detailed illustrations are a visual delight and hit exactly the right note for the subject matter. My reservations come in the fact that the ending seems fudged and confusing: did Grandad actually die? Did he retire to an island? Or did he go to whatever version of ‘Heaven’ your particular (secular or non-secular) beliefs allow? It certainly encourages questions.  

This book, by the late American essayist, Joan Didion, will not be a surprise choice for many people who are looking for a companion to not just guide them through the grieving process but also to reassure them that they are not going crazy.

I was disheartened in March 2022 when I learned that prolonged grief had been added to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health) and classified as a mental disorder. There is no uniform end date on normal grief and The Year of Magical Thinking exquisitely underscores this idea.

Charting her own journey after her husband’s death, Didion writes openly about grief and how it can seem, at times, as if we are losing our minds when, in fact, it is a normal part of the grieving process. This book is a treasure.

Linda’s a graduate of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I’ve taught since 2006. I love it when my reading mind seems to make a conversation out of the books I’ve read. For me, this novel seemed to be speaking to all the other books on this list—through the large, tender presence of the elephant, Queenie Grace, especially in the chapters written in her first-person voice; the growing affection between the child, Lily, and the elephant; the shifting family dynamics, so that blame and guilt give way to communication and empathy; all kinds of chains and ways to loosen them and be free. I even found a surprising little nugget of historical information in the author’s note.