Description Sophie Blackall, an author who looks at life with warmth, writes and paints the ordinary yet dazzling miracle of everyday life. It's easy to say "cherish your life," but far harder to actually live that way. Most of us go through days that aren't so different from yesterday, and meet tomorrow without much expectation. The repetition of daily life can even start to feel tedious and dull. Then, suddenly, big and small events crash into our lives, wounding us, pulling us down, or hiding us away beneath dark clouds. And sometimes, vast events that affect not just one person but everyone all at once swallow up the everyday world in an instant. Only then do we realize that today is never something to be taken for granted. But even after this painful realization, we still don't quite know what to do. How can we come to love a life that so often feels small and insignificant? How can we look forward to the today we're given again, and to the tomorrow still to come? Sophie Blackall, a picture book author celebrated by readers and critics around the world, offers her own kind of answer to these questions in this illustrated essay for readers of all ages, The Names of Joy I Know. In it, she captures 52 joys—small and large, ordinary and extraordinary—that fill our everyday lives, weaving them together in words and pictures. She previously explored hope and loss in her Caldecott Medal–winning Hello Lighthouse, and conveyed messages of understanding, coexistence, and trust in If You Come to Earth. The same thoughtful gentleness with which she has always regarded people and life shines through fully in this new work, and it has once again drawn praise from readers and press around the world. The Possibilities of Life Become Clearer When We Pause to Really Look In his essay "Little Joys," Hermann Hesse wrote that we build our lives by stringing together, one by one, the countless small things we experience each day and the small joys we gain from them. Sophie Blackall seems to share this belief. Like someone gathering shining pebbles on a beach, she carefully selects the big and small joys that fill her own life and lays them out for readers, one by one. These joys take the form of nature surrounding us—like a rising sun, the first snow, or a rainbow—or small, everyday actions, like a warm shower, hugging a friend, or petting a dog. They can also be unexpected moments, like finding something you'd lost or coming across a piece of art in a museum that moves you deeply. Reading these 52 gentle, lively essays alongside the author's signature warm and lovely watercolor illustrations, the fragments of daily life that once seemed so ordinary begin to feel new again. Readers will not only recognize joys they've already been experiencing without quite noticing, but may also feel inspired to try out the small everyday ideas the author suggests—and eventually, to start seeking out the names of the joys they know for themselves. In this way, the book invites us to notice the joys that quietly settle into our days and light up our hearts, drawing inspiration from them to bring new life to our own world. We hope that readers who meet this book will not miss the small sparkles of life they once overlooked, and further, that they will discover new possibilities in their own lives—embracing each given day with joy rather than simply enduring it. A Book of the Heart—For Myself, For My Days, For My Life, and For Someone Else "I gave this book to my daughter, and ordered ten more copies as holiday gifts"—among the many reviews from readers overseas, phrases like "I gave this as a gift" or "I want to give this as a gift" appear again and again. Sophie Blackall has said in interviews that she made this book to offer hope, comfort, and warmth to people going through dark times. Readers who encountered the book didn't simply receive the author's warmth for themselves—they wanted to pass it on to others, too. That's because this book carries a message that can uplift anyone: those going through hard times, those grieving, those preparing for a new beginning, or those with something to celebrate.