How to Send a Hug

by Hayley Rocco, John Rocco (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Regardless of location or circumstance, Hayley and John Rocco's latest guide to sharing love is a sweet, re-readable and, at times, educational story that anyone can embrace. For those with loved ones near or far, this touches the soul like a warm hug.

Learn how to send a hug to someone you love today! This heartfelt story shows readers the incredible impact writing and receiving handwritten letters can have on yourself and others.

How will you know your hug arrived safely?
Because when you send a hug,
You just might get one in return

 
Artie loves giving hugs. But she can't give a hug to her Grandma who lives so far away. Instead, she shows us how to send hugs using the magic of handwritten letters in this timeless story about connecting to loved ones when you can't always do so in person.
 
Both timely and timeless, How to Send a Hug is about reaching out across the miles when you can’t do so yourself in person and turning words into love.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316306928
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	231,036
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Hayley Rocco has loved children’s books her whole life and worked in publishing for more than a decade promoting them. She’s been sending hugs since she was six. It was only natural that she created a book about how to do just that. Hayley lives in Rhode Island with her husband, two cats, and a very excitable dog. This is her first book.

John Rocco is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of many acclaimed books for children, including Blackout, recipient of the Caldecott Honor and How We Got To The Moon, recipient of the Sibert Honor and Longlisted for the National Book Award.  John has been learning to send hugs, and is starting to get pretty good at it. 
 

Editorial Reviews

10/10/2022

Married collaborators the Roccos introduce a young, white-presenting narrator with a long ponytail and chronically untied sneakers, portrayed with a white duck whose moods and movements beguilingly mimic the child’s. “I love hugs,” the protagonist declares, but points out that they’re hard to give to far-off loved ones. It’s possible to talk to Grandma Gertie on the phone or on the computer, for example, but it’s not the same as an embrace. Instead, the child suggests, a hug can be sent. A marker, a sheet of paper, perhaps paints, and a “hug” emerges in letter form. Mixed-media artwork by John Rocco (Hurricane) supplies visual explanations for the extended hug metaphor written in text by debut author Hayley Rocco. To travel, the narrator explains, the hug needs a jacket (an envelope) and a ticket (a stamp). It will be picked up by a Hug Delivery Specialist (a mail carrier) and taken to a building “where all the hugs are sorted” before it arrives to give joy—and perhaps inspire a return “hug.” Building to a group image of variously diverse characters reading letters, it’s a sweet-tempered approach to an everyday show of affection. Ages 4–8. Agent (for author and illustrator): Rob Weisbach, Rob Weisbach Creative. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

* "A celebration of letters that gently gives young readers the knowledge and tools to share the love."—Kirkus, starred review

* “Here is a delightful tribute to “old-fashioned” letter writing that may inspire youngsters to try their hand at creating a work of art that can be read and reread often.”—Booklist, starred review

"a sweet-tempered approach to an everyday show of affection."—Publishers Weekly

"...this book might be a revelation."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

12/16/2022

Gr 1–4—Instead of calling this book something more prosaic, such as, How to Write and Mail a Letter to Your Favorite Grandparent, the author uses the language of hugs, while the illustrator translates it into nonfiction. "They will take [the letter you have written and put in an envelope and addressed and stamped] to a special building where all the hugs are sorted, and their jackets are stamped so that they all end up at the right place." In an era when many children only see the junk and flyers that line their family mailboxes, or the emails that line a computer screen, this book might be a revelation. The freckle-faced child at its center has not seen her grandmother, Gertie, in months, but here is a way to send a hug and all the accompanying love, straight to her heart. Scenes of postal buildings, carriers, trucks, planes, and all the waiting one does while a letter makes its way to a loved one fill spreads, as do letters that others have written, including one of a diverse crowd joyfully reading over the opened pages. An elderly light-skinned lighthouse keeper, an older man using a wheelchair and a plaid blanket to keep warm, a Black family of three, a white soldier sitting on sandbags, inhaling the scent of the pages—these are scenes of people who know the value of a hug in the mail. Share this with children, then get out the paper and writing materials and get started. VERDICT An old-fashioned way to introduce a newfangled idea: connecting via an envelope full of love, post-pandemic. For class projects or a conversation about long-distance families.—Kimberly Olson Fakih

School Library Journal

★ 2022-09-14
Hugs are for everyone anytime they need a little extra love, but how can you hug a person who lives far away?

Talking on the phone or via computer isn’t enough, but luckily Artie shares a way to send a hug—by writing a letter. Infused with the love a hug carries, these step-by-step instructions begin with finding the right writing implement and paper and taking plenty of time for this important task. The story then follows the letter’s journey from the mail drop through a variety of possible transports (“by two legs and four legs, by four wheels and two wheels”) to the magic of delivery and the even greater joy of getting a reply. Readers as lucky as Artie will receive a return letter that carries the scent of its writer, like Grandma Gertie’s missive, filled with rose petals. Fun wording, like putting the letter in a “special jacket to keep it safe and warm” (an envelope), sticking “a ticket” on the envelope “in just the right spot” (a stamp), and the letter being picked up by a “Hug Delivery Specialist” (postal worker), adds humor, as does Artie’s ever present pet duck. Artie and Grandma Gertie present White; the postal workers and the other people depicted receiving letters throughout are racially and geographically diverse. The realistic illustrations in pencil, watercolor, and digital color expand the story and add a layer of love and humor. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A celebration of letters that gently gives young readers the knowledge and tools to share the love. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews