I Wish I Could Tell You is a touching, poetic tale that wrestles with the complex emotions we feel when we lose someone close to us, from an award-winning children's book author.

Losing someone you love, someone close to you, can be difficult to talk about. But sometimes writing a letter can help you find the words you wish you could say. That’s exactly what a young fox realizes one morning after learning about the death of his beloved grandmother, someone with whom he shared so many special memories. As he longingly searches for any trace of her presence in all their familiar haunts, the young fox soon discovers that only by embracing his grief will the right words—the words he wishes he could say to his grandmother—come to him.

Jean-Francois Sénéchal's profile page

Chiaki Okada's profile page

Jean-François Sénéchal was born among books. After studying anthropology, he returned to his first love, devoting himself to literature. He is a well-decorated author: the winner of the 2017 Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Literature from the Canada Council for the Arts, a 2019 Prix jeunesse des libraires du Québec, and a 2021 Governor General’s Award, for which he was also a finalist in 2019. Sénéchal was also named to the 2018 Honour List of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).
Chiaki Okada is an illustrator and author of children’s books from Osaka, Japan. Her gentle, calming artwork was selected at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2010 and she has since illustrated books by authors from around the world. Her first picture book published in English, For All the Stars Across the Sky, was released in 2019. She lives in Japan.

“The story explores the confusion, disbelief, sorrow, and acceptance of losing a loved one in a compassionate, accessible way, ending on a reminder to cherish the good memories.”

Foreword

"If you’re looking for Grandparent Loss 101, I Wish I Could Tell You is the book to grab. Its sweetly old-fashioned illustrations might give the impression that you’ve wandered into a fairy tale, but the story packs a timeless and gracefully executed emotional wallop . . . devastating and triumphant."

New York Times Book Review