Ladder to the Moon by Maya Soetoro-Ng (author) and Yuyi Morales (illustrator)

Written by Maya Soetoro-Ng, half-sister of President Obama, this lyrical story relays the loving wisdom of their late mother to a young granddaughter she never met.

Little Suhaila wishes she had known her grandma, who (her mother tells her) would have wrapped her arms round the whole world if she could. And one night Suhaila gets her wish when a golden ladder appears at her window and Grandma Annie, arms outstretched, invites the girl to come along with her on a journey. In a rich and deeply personal narrative, Maya Soetoro-Ng distils her mother’s love for family, her compassion and her ethic of service into the story of a remarkable meeting between grandmother and grandchild. Yuyi Morales’s vibrant, emotionally resonant artwork illuminates this dreamlike tale, reminding us that loved ones lost are always with us – and that sometimes we need only to look at the moon and remember.