I absolutely loved reading this book and already have a list of people that I want to send it to. This book has a wonderful message about the power and comfort of love and how it follows you even when you're not near those you love. This book is a great read for those struggling with the distance brought by the current pandemic, but also for kids going off to school or daycare for the first time.

LOVE, written by Corrinne Averiss with illustrations by Kirsti Beautyman, is a touching, sweet, and beautifully illustrated little book to help explain love and separation anxiety to young children. It's a heartwarming read, that cleverly renders the intangibility of love and connection as a visible, visceral string analogy that works quite well. The illustrations are soft, warm-colored, and gentle, perfectly suiting the text. Perfect for a gift for new parents or young kids, and especially lovely for bedtime reading!

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for the advance review copy!

This was a great picture book! I loved how it both focuses on how the string of love goes to whoever you love and ties you together, but also that for some it goes up into the sky because their loved ones are dead. It really goes deep into it and tries to create concrete examples so that children may understand it better. Loved this!

This picture book tells the story of Tess who is starting school. She has always felt cocooned in love at home and wonders what it will be like to venture out into the world with no family member in her classroom. Tess’s mom assures her that there is a string (invisible) that always will keep them together. But…what happens when a little something goes wrong? Will love remain strong? No spoiler, of course it will.

This picture book has inviting illustrations and highlights the love of parents, siblings and grandparents. It shows that school is a benign environment with kind teachers and children. All of this is positive. I do think that young children will be reassured by this title. Literal young children may need a bit of help to understand a metaphorical string though.

At its core this is a story about coping with separation anxiety and the worry new situations can pose for children. Hopefully, this book’s audience will find its message empowering and encouraging.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

LOVE by Corrinne Averiss is a good book about separation anxiety and love. The art is pretty to look at.

When Tess has to start school for the first time, her family cannot come with her. Everyone loves everyone is her house but will the love be able to stretch the distance from home to school?

I loved the message of love being like a string that can reach everywhere without breaking. I think this book might be especially nice if you have a child or know someone who has separation anxiety.

Tess has always felt love in her home, but will this love extend to her school? Simple idea, but so beautifully executed! Oh, why weren't there such beautiful books when I was a child!?!?!?!??! I read the whole thing with a huge grin on my face, and yes, with great big strings of warm cocooning love all over me.
The story, the illustrations, the writing, the moral, all perfect!!!

Beautiful illustrations, great way to show that love is always with you even when you might be away from that person.

A very adorable and topical story about the importance of ties that keep us connected to our loved ones. Would be an excellent choice to enhance a young classroom experience.

Love connects all.
Wonderful book to get kids prepared for school life. I also enjoyed the illustrations.

A sweet and darling story about love, the love children feel to their family and the understanding of separation. This is a really great story about a young girl named Tess who is starting school for the first time and is anxious about being away from her loving family. It helps kids understand love and how even if someones not there, their love is always there. I would highly recommend this book for kids!

*Thanks Netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group – words & pictures for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

A most assuredly successful look at a family full of love, and a doubting young girl who fears it might still not be enough to impact her and keep up the warm and cosy feeling it gives her when she faces her first day at school. The visuals are really strong here, right down to how the love is conveyed, shared and so easily mended – I'm making sure not to give any spoilers as to how it's carried on to the page. I was left wondering why the mother's drop-shoulder jumper and the tribal-style tattoos it showed off were such an important feature, but it was one more really attractive element of this volume. Obvious and clear, without being overtly An Obvious Important Lesson Book, this deserves to do really well.

I really enjoyed reading this to my nieces. It spreads an important message about kids not being worried during times of separation from their parents and loved ones.

The illustration and text was enjoyable and easy to understand for the kids. They liked the storyline and took the message well

I loved that this was an Asian family! The artwork was beautiful in this, and I loved the message about love coming from all sorts of relationships in your life. This was a fun heartfelt book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Oh my god! This was so adorable and I just loved it. The story was so beautiful and the illustrations were so cute and wonderful. What is not to love about this book let me ask you.
The cover was amazing and it made me curious to know how it would be inside. The illustrations made this simple short story alive.
This book is just about LOVE and nothing more, we are always connected to those we love either here or beyond this world. The string is too long and could not be cut because they remain in our hearts today and forever.

This is a wonderful book dealing with the anxiety one might feel when they have to leave their parents/guardians for the first time to go to school. This book would be perfect to read on the first day of preschool or Kindergarten. It would also be a good book to refer back to whenever a child is feeling upset and missing their family. I love the string metaphor used in this book and think that is a great way to describe love to a younger child. This book also touched on a harder subject of a child’s parent who passed away. Children have all sorts of different families so I think it is important that this was included in the book.

LOVE CONNECTS US, NO MATTER HOW FAR APART WE ARE.
A beautiful story that tells us about the connection of a family and its definition of how love can survive despite being far away, it is very tender the way the illustrations are linked to the text, without a doubt they give a touch of interest to the history.
It is a perfect gift for the little ones at home and even for someone you love.

LOVE is a sweet story of connection, love and interconnectedness. When Ted's heads to school for the first time she is worried about leaving her family, but her Mom reminds her that they are always connected with the string of love. Then Tess behind finding one strings between people she meets.
This would be a great story to share on the first day or during the first week of school. Can't wait to add it to my classroom collection.

This is a beautiful book about a child who feels anxious on her first day of school. The illustrations are charming and the story is very sweet and will be comforting for children experiencing anxiety or apprehension about starting school. I would definitely use this in my classroom at the beginning of the school year or if a child joins mid-year. My only concern is that it was not clear (for young readers) whether the string was purely metaphorical or sometimes literal; I think this would be confusing for young children and might need to be explained!

A heartfelt story about LOVE, especially when we can't be right near the ones that have always brought us comfort, such as on a first day of school. The illustrations and story of LOVE by Corrinne Averiss will bring you comfort, especially as love is shown as having a tangible reminder so that little ones can see how kindness and relationships bind us together.
LOVE would be a perfect companion read to "The Kissing Hand" for Kindergarteners heading off to school.

A really lovely written and illustrated book to help children understand their emotions and being separated from the people they love. Is great for children who are just starting school and could see it being really useful read at home and with a reception class. Lots of scope for talking about feelings and emotions and the illustrations really help with that. I already feel like I have several ideas how I could use this with children in class!

I love how the book gives a different way to talk about children’s feelings and gives a good talking point with children to help them understand the changes happening in their life.

This book focuses on a little girls who is nervous about starting school and being away from her family, her mum the gives her a tool to help her and the story talks about how this tool helps her on her first day at school.

Love the book! At first I was confused what the book was talking about? But at the end, I can't agree more with the author.

Explaining emotions and feelings are difficult to kids. You can't see it and you're not sensitive enough to it. So when your parents separated, suddenly there's this fear of not being loved. Or what about if your loved one passed away? Could you find love outside your comfort zone? And the author tried her best to explain, to eliminate kids' fear of being left.

I received a copy of this book to review from Netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity.
A gorgeous book with a warm-hearted tale at the heart. I adored this story with its timely reminder of love being woth you near and far. The illustrations are delightful and this book would be a welcome addition to any child's bookshelf. A wonderful read.

Lovely book on separation anxiety

It's time for Tess to start school. She's excited, but also worried. She usually has people around her that love her, and she's never been anywhere just by herself...
This book is absolutely lovely. Beautiful illustrations and a lovely story on how we are all loved by people, no matter how near or far we are to them. Definitely a recommendation for kids starting kindergarten or school!

This is an absolutely delightful book about the concept of love and how to explain love to the young people in your life particularly if they are going to nursery or school for the first time. It is a gorgeously illustrated book which will give you all the feels.

I loved the book, Love, by Corrinne Averiss. It is a story of the love between a young girl and her family. For the first time, the love has to really stretch as the young girl starts school for the first time by herself. She is worried that she will lose her love from her family by being away from them.

Her worries grow lesser as she sees the love and connections develop at school. She sees strings of love form between her teacher, her new friends, and all the love they have in their own lives.

Free ARC from Netgalley.

Love is about a child that's always had parents by her side. Never being away from them. But when she starts school she has to be on her own for the first time. But how will she know that her parents still loves her, when they're not there? This book explains about the connection of love between a child and parents (and other relations) in a very easy to understand and graphic way. And how that love never dissappears even when you can't see each other.

A very cute story, told with beautiful illustrations.

This is a very sweet little picture book with lovely illustrations. When the world finally begins to return to normal, we will have more kiddos going away to school for the first time - or the first time in a long time - than we have for a very long time, and books like this could be an excellent choice to help mitigate some of the inevitable separation anxiety.

Beautifully illustrated where the words and pictures dovetail wonderfully to enhance and lift this story to a level of enchanted bliss.
It is hard to relate emotions into concepts young people can fully understand. The key word here is Love, the title of the book and this abstract word is shared across the context of family life. The sense of belonging and shared experiences.
In this way Love is used to explore and comfort allowing less tangible words for emotions to be introduced. These are separation and anxiety.
So a beautiful book, clearly a firm favourite of children who love the illustrations, the word pictures wrapping up this family in love.
I am always loathed to give adult concepts to formulate and influence a child’s own imagination so I would ask as part of my reading what they think of these ideas. The bond of love is here imagined as a connecting string or an enveloping scarf.
Preparing and going to school is more of a trauma for parents than kids in my own experience, but ideas such as separation and the anxiety of not being picked up with everyone else at the end of a school day could be traumatic at any age.
Some of us carried it into dating (no mobile phones then kids), waiting outside the cinema for that girl to turn up.
This is a book that deserves a place on a child’s bookcase and it will prompt wider chats to bottom out some difficult emotions. The very act of reading to a child indicates an existing love and bond with them.

I thought this was such a beautiful picture book about a young girl who knows the love she has at home with her family, but then she starts school and she is worried the love she has at home she can not find it at school, but then she soon learns that love can be all around with different people. I also love the illustrations I thought they were beautifully done.

Tess is a little girl who lives in a very loving family. They are bound tightly together by their love. When she leaves for her first day of school she is worried that the love she feels won't go with her and she will be separated from them. Luckily she has a very wise teacher who guides and helps her with her feelings of detachment. She discovers that she can create similar feelings with her teacher and other classmates until her mother once again returns to pick her up. She realizes that love connects her no matter how far apart she is from her loved ones.

This book is both informative and inspiring to little ones. The illustrations are a very strong force in reinforcing the message of the strength and the power of love. I highly recommend this book.

This book is so sweet! It illustrates a concept that can be tricky to explain to a little kid (parents always come back!) and I could see and feel it taking a hold on my daughter as we read it (she kept snuggling closer and closer to me.) Plus, the illustrations are gorgeous.

Thank you Words & Pictures and NetGalley for the digital advance reading copy of this book.

This is a beautiful book, designed to help kids transition to their first day of school or daycare. I love the idea of a string connecting us to all the people we love. Harry's string got me right in the heart, I cried a little bit on that one.

This will be a book I recommend to parents with a little one beginning a new journey.

LOVE by Corinne Averiss is a wonderful story all about love, friendship and connection.

I can easily see this book being a resource to help kids transition into school or new situations (camps, daycares or staying away from their parents for a night, for an example). This book explains that everyone who cares for each other has a string attached to them. When you leave your parents to go to school, they are still at the end of your string even if they are far away. It's a really sweet message that can help explain that someone still loves you and cares for you when you aren't right with them.

This book is marvellous and I highly recommend it. Young readers will be able to appreciate and learn from this book. As a bonus, the illustrations are colourful, soft and engaging.

Four out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, words & pictures, and Quarto Publishing Group for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

"Love connects us no matter how far apart we are."
That is what this well illustrated story tells us with the use of *strings* that connect us to those we love and who love us whether family, friends old and new, teachers and more. So scary things like going to school (or a new school) are simply places where the strings go with us, even if they have to be knotted when broken. I loved it!
I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Quarto Publishing Group – words & pictures via NetGalley. Thank you!

This was really cute and heartwarming. This story is meant for children with separation issues understand that parents (and others) love them no matter how for or close they are. Lovely message and beautiful illustrations.

This is a lovely story of the strength and boundless quality of love.
This story reminds me of the invisible stirring.
It follows a young girl going to school for the first time, her Mum explains how she has a string of Love which will stretch all the way to school. Mum is late at home time and the little girl unties her string of Love.
As well as the text being perfect for the age range, the exquisite illustrations add a subtle depth and lots of opportunities to talk around the text about ways to reconnect and build love.
A lovely book, especially for children starting school, or returning to school one COVID restrictions allow.

This is such a beautiful little book – and maybe the only picture book that's made me cry! The artwork is so appealing, with pretty colours and a good mix of character designs, and the message is so lovely and important for children to read. I'll be getting this for the small children in my life.

This story is a sweet emotional story about Love.

Love is something that we always carry with ourselves.

This concept is explained in first day of school setting.

We are tied to each other with love string which stretches and this idea gives comfort to Tess who is away from her parents at school.

Her mum is late to pick her up and hence she gets worried.

But finally her mom does come to get her and explains that love will always tie them together

LOVE is a sweet story of a little girl who goes to school for the first time and feels alone. She pulls on the string that ties her to her mother and hopes she’s on the other side waiting for her. She develops strings (friendships) with her teacher and friends at school throughout the day.
A great book/gift for a child closing in on their first day of school.

Love is a sweet book about feelings. Tess knows her mom loves her, but she's very nervous to go to school where she won't have her family and their love as close as she's used to. She eventually learns that love is always with you, and that being apart is okay. An excellent concept books for little ones.

Such a sweet book! Perfect for someone starting school, living in a new home away from a parent or simply starting a new chapter without their loved one next to them. Love follows wherever you are. Beautiful message!

Tess's family loves love. It's time for tess start school and be away from her family for the first time. She starts to worry that distance diminishes love. This is a very cute story and perfect for those with first day of school jitters. I also loved the use of strings.

so sweet! A great intro to love, how it feels, and all of the different kinds. Great illustrations as well.

"Everyone loves everyone in Tess’s house, but when Tess has to leave for school for the very first time, she is worried that her family’s love might not stretch that far. "

In this story, a young girl is experiencing that dreaded separation anxiety felt by so many kids around the world as they go off to school for the first time. For many, it is also their first time away from a prominent caretaker in their family. This book explores the fears, anxieties, frustrations, tenderness, depth, and trust in the love between Tess and her mother.

It was emotional, almost too much so for my 4 1/2 year old who is scared of leaving home next year for school (which is why I thought this book would be lovely for her). It required more explaining than I expected because it's quite metaphorical laced with direct fears which I don't think always mixes well for young readers. It did provide us with a change to talk and reassure and explain a little more, which I appreciated have the framework to do.

The book is gentle, sweet, and illustrated gorgeously. I loved seeing diversity amongst the characters and students of the story.

This has a very good message that is sweetly delivered.

Tess is blessed to have a warm and lovely family consisting of mother, father, daughter, and son. The time comes for Tess to go to school and she is concerned about leaving her family. Her mother explains that love is a string, connecting people even when they are far away. Tess’s teacher encourages her and reinforces the message. Tess sees other children with strings and one has a string that connects even an absent parent. But how will Tess react at the end of the day when the other children leave and her parents haven’t yet arrived?

This is a lovely picture book and an easy read for young children. The message is beautiful and perfect to share with children who will be experiencing time away from their parents whether for school or perhaps for deployment or medical reasons. The illustrations are clear and charming. I highly recommend this, and I would like to see Ms. Averiss’ previous books too.

Source: 2020 NetGalley.

A touching and beautifully illustrated children’s book about connection: when we’re with the people we love, when we’re temporarily absent from them, and after their death.

The connection metaphor is shown by a string that links person to person, even to animal companions. The story helps young readers better cope with separation anxiety in a gentle yet impactful way.

5 of 5 Stars

Pub Date 19 Jan 2021
#LOVE #NetGalley

Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group – words & pictures and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of LOVE by Corrinne Averiss.

This is a beautiful story about a little girl going to school for the first time. Tess is nervous that she won't feel her families love when she's not with them. Her Mom explains that love is like a string and it will connect people no matter how far away they are. It is a wonderful book for kids who are anxious to go to school or be far away from their loved ones.

I will definitely get this book for our library.

LOVE is a wonderful book about a little girl who feels disconnected from her family on her first day of school, who quickly learns that her family's love is unconditional and never fades. I absolutely loved the illustrations and I would love to purchase this book for my niece.

I really enjoyed this story and this creative idea on how to explain love to children. I would recommend this for families and classrooms. I really enjoyed the analogies and the visual representations will really work for children.

How adorable this book! If you have kids, trying to read with them and explain what love is. Love is not for the boyfriend or girlfriend but for entire family. We should love our family first especially mom and dad, grandma and grandpa.

Loving someone means you like being near them. As near as possibly you can get. This is what mom Tess had said to her. Love will wrap them and kept warm like a scarf whenever they are going including when Tess had visited her grandma and grandpa, the loved will safe stayed there.

The illustration inside the book was so superb and colorful! Kids will definitely love to read it including me as an adult. The words building that use in this book was just okay to understand.

There's no shortage of books to teach love to children, but somehow I haven’t found yet the one that really made sense to me. Until <b>Love</b> by Corrine Averiss.

Absolutely wonderful! I need this in paper!

<i>Thank you Quarto Publishing Group – words & pictures, words & pictures and Netgalley for providing me an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!</i>

Oh what a sweet book! I loved Tess developing strings with people at school but I loved even more that she learned about all the other strings that the children and teachers had. This book would definitely help a child feel less alone when starting a big journey on their own such as school. I also loved that her mom told her that the string will never be broken no matter what happens.

—Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.


This was so lovely and sweet. It made me tear up quite a lot.