The Island

A powerful and poetic picture book, featuring gorgeous watercolor art, about a child who learns to make peace with their overwhelming emotions.

Sometimes I go to the Island.
I never mean to go.
I never want to go.
But the sky darkens,
and the wind rises,
and the current pulls me away.

On the Island, a child wanders down dim and winding paths, their emotions churning. Loneliness. Sadness. Fear.

But today on the Island, for the first time, they meet another person. A person who guides them out of the shadows. Assures them that everyone feels this way sometimes. And helps them find their way home.

From two New York Times-bestselling creators comes a moving picture book about the island inside all of us: the place we go when we feel scared and sad and overwhelmed. It shows kids that, by exploring and learning from our scariest emotions, we can feel more at home inside ourselves.Gideon Sterer grew up in the woods of upstate New York, where his parents owned a wildlife discovery center. Now based in the Hudson Valley, he is the author of many celebrated books for children, including The Christmas Owl, which was a New York Times bestseller, and From Ed's to Ned's, which was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.

Julia Sarcone-Roach writes and illustrates picture books. She is the author and illustrator of The Bear Ate Your Sandwich, which won the 2016 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor and was a New York Times bestseller. Julia grew up in Arlington, Virginia, studied film and animation at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she paints pictures, eats sandwiches, and looks for bears.