While We Can’t Hug: a beautifully simple way to demonstrate that even if we can’t hug… we can still love each other! 

“Hedgehog and Tortoise were the best of friends.
They wanted to give each other a great, big hug.
But they weren’t allowed to touch.
“Don’t worry,” said Owl. “There are lots of ways to show someone you love them.”
So the two friends wave to each other, blow kisses, sing songs, dance around and write letters. And even though they can’t hug and they can’t touch, they both know that they are loved.”

While We Can’t Hug is a gorgeous, uplifting story about 2 friends who aren’t allowed to hug. They get sad about that and it’s not until a wise owl comes along that they see that there are lots of ways to show someone you love them that isn’t giving them a hug! 

The book goes through lots of adorable ways that Hedgehog and Tortoise can show the other that they love each other and care for each other, without touching each other. There’s some gorgeous illustrations by Polly Dunbar of the two friends getting involved in lots of fun things to do separately, but together. 

I read this book to my bubble of children in school and they thought it was adorable. They recognised that for younger children, what we are going through/what we’ve been going through has been really hard. We had some wonderful conversations about their younger brothers and sisters finding it really hard to not be able to see or hug their family and friends and ways in which they helped their brothers and sisters to understand. One of my boys said, “Miss, you know if little people had this story it might help them to see themselves in the Hedgehog or the Tortoise because they are the story version of what they’re going through” and I thought that was absolutely spot on. 

This book is brilliant. It’s so beautifully done and the first time I saw the video, I had a little cry. For me, the dance page hit me hardest because I’ve been doing a dancealong thing with my class where we put on a song at 10am on a Friday in our houses and we know that there are other people dancing along in their own houses and it’s really helped us to feel a bit more connected!

What we’re living through at the minute is strange… we’ve never had to experience this before, but for little people who might not be able to understand/vocablise how they’re feeling, this book could be an incredible resource. I know that the bubbles in school who have younger children have watched the video and they absolutely love it. There have been some adorable drawings of what the children can do instead of hugging the people they love! 

If you’re interested in the video of this gorgeous book, you can check it out here: While We Can’t Hug: Faber Youtube link

If you’d like to buy this book, which I totally think everyone should because it’s adorable, you can check out the links below, or if you can support your local bookshops/indies!

Link to buy: Amazon

Link to buy: Waterstones

A massive thank you to the publishers, Faber, for inviting me to be part of this blog tour… and on release day nonetheless! Check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour! 

S x