Four Books on Sibling Rivalry

Oh, the rage! I feel like I could have just as easily titled this edition of feminist picturebooks “on sheer, unbridled rage.” I am sure I am not alone in experiencing sheer, unbearable, toxic anger in relationship to siblings and sibling rivalry. In a beautiful book titled Happiness in Translation: A glossary of joy from around the world, author Tim Lomas sets out to share different words on joy from around the globe. He translates harmonia from the Greek as “concordance, union, agreement…empathic resonance between entities.” Well Tim, if ever there was a book titled Unhappiness in Translation, I would like to put in a bid for the natural antonym of harmonia as “sibling rivalry”: the bitter, rage-filled feelings of animosity towards one’s sibling(s) and the general family misery this can accrue.

I am an only child, and I was unprepared for the toxic cocktail of emotions that can arise due to the complicated relationships between siblings. Heartache, grief, rage, overwhelm, and also whatever the feeling is called that expresses itself in me at least as “I have absolutely no f*** clue what to do here.” And yet, what richer relationships exist, and what better practice for the world is there? The shifting, waxing/waning, tide-like emotions that siblings inspire in each other and in their families are so much of this world. . . .this beautiful, challenging world full of so many resonant and discordant feelings and moments. Recently, my sons were talking into each other in the back of the car with an almost bemused nostalgia. “Remember when we didn’t get along?” one said to the other. “Oh yeah,” said the other. “We didn’t get along SO much.” They spoke with reverence, with nostalgia – as if the phenomenon of not getting along was clearly something of the past, when sheer minutes earlier they had struggled with such force over an old popsicle stick that they had broken it into thirds. And I felt their wisdom so strongly – they are right. It was of the past in that present moment. They were getting along about not getting along. And what more profound human truth can we hope for in connection.
In the spirit of the big feelings that siblings engender, here are 3 books which have helped me at times to live to fight another day.

Pecan Pie Baby
By Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Sophie Blackall

This beautiful book does so many things. Gia’s mother appears to be a single mother, and their house is full of friends and aunties and uncles whose role is never clearly explained but seem like chosen family. Gia’s Mama is having a baby, and all anyone wants to talk about is that “ding-dang baby”. The aunties come over and play tea party with Gia, but they drink their tea in one big gulp and eat their toast in two bites, without even bothering to say “Why, isn’t the weather marvelous, dear Lady,” so eager are they to go back to talking about the ding-dang baby. At school, teacher reads a book about someone who is going to be a big sister, and when she’s done, *everyone* looks at Gia. At home, her sleepover friend and Gia worry there won’t be any room for her to sleep over anymore once the ding-dang baby arrives. Grandma even talks to Gia about coming to spend more time with her, since the baby will need mama now. “I need mama now” Gia thinks to herself. On Thanksgiving, everyone is over and “all anybody could talk about was baby this and baby that.” Gia can’t take it anymore, and finally bursts out with “I’m so sick of that ding-dang baby!” The whole table gets quiet, and Gia is sent to her room. While there, she gets that “teary, choky feeling. And even though there were a whole lot of people in my house, I felt real, real, real, alone.”

Gia’s mother comes upstairs a bit later and comes to sit beside Gia:

“You know what I’m going to miss the most when the baby comes, Gia?” Mama asked.
“I know what I’m going to miss the most,” I said. “My whole life, whole life, before . . .before the. . . “
“Ding-dang baby,” Mama said.
I smiled. “Yeah. Before that ding-dang baby.”
“Guess what,” Mama whispered.
“What?” I said.
“I’m gonna miss that too.”

Oh life, its attendant complications! “The highs, the lows!” my friend Ummni Khan used to say. Life's moment of closeness often brought on by conflict. We think of conflict as dividing, as if fighting itself were made of separation. But isn’t conflict connecting? Isn’t precisely that which drives us crazy that which draws us together? And aren’t those moments of understanding so often engendered precisely by misunderstanding?

Sometimes, like this morning, with two boys happily connecting over what divides them, I felt I understood, if only for a nano-second, precisely what life was all about.


Wolfie the Bunny
Written by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Zachariah OHora

I feel this book does one of the best jobs at summing up how an older child feels about the arrival of a sibling. In this book, the Bunny family comes home to find a “bundle outside their door.” It is a wolf, and to Dot’s amazement, her parents are thrilled. Although Wolfie is a wolf, and Dot continually tries to tell her parents that he’s “going to eat us all up!” Mama and Papa are “too smitten to listen.” While Dot tries to warn them of the dangers, Mama and Papa endlessly marvel over Wolfie. “He’s a good eater!” said Papa. “Speaking of eating,” said Dot, “He’s going to eat us all up!” But Mama and Papa are too busy taking pictures to listen. Finally the day comes when Wolfie has eaten all the carrots in the house, and Dot must take him to the store to get more. While there, Dot is picking one last carrot when Wolfie’s mouth opened wide. “I knewit!” cried Dot, but Wolfie is not looking at Dot, he is looking at a big bear who has spotted them and wants to eat them both. It is Dot’s chance to run away, but instead she runs forward. “Let him go, or I’ll eat you all up!” says Dot. The bear blinked. “You’re a bunny!” he said. But such is the intensity of Dot’s protectiveness of Wolfie, telling the bear that she will eat him up by starting on his toes, that he ceases and desists and decides to run away.

Oh the contradictory feelings siblings engender in us! Of love and protection, of rage and jealousy and despair. To me, there is no better metaphor for a new sibling than a dangerous, attention-absorbing wolf cub in a household of bunnies. And yet, ultimately, he is their wolf cub, and in some moments anyway, that is all that matters. Something I did not expect but which I now know to be universal is that sibling rivalry does not only overtake the kids. At times I feel protective of one child or the other – and I feel deep rage at the other for frustrating the family system. That is, sibling rivalry does not just consume the siblings. Another child is indeed a wolf cub that comes to disrupt formerly harmonious moments. And embracing that, like the wolf cub in the bunny family, is sometimes the best we can do. And, in fact, is sometimes the best there is.


My Cousin Momo
by Zachariah OHora

This book is less about sibling rivalry and more about family dynamics and outsiders joining the family. I wanted to include it because it includes family members visiting, perhaps from other countries, perhaps stepchildren joining the family, perhaps adoption of older children. It’s excellent. With very few words, it details the complexities of family reconfiguration. At the beginning, the cousins are so excited about Momo’s arrival. “This is my cousin Momo! He’s a flying squirrel!” Although they have been counting down the days until his arrival, when he arrives, Momo seems “kind of shy.” Their parents tell them to give him some time, and just “make him feel welcome,” those clunky, parental adages which no children want to heed ever.

The children try, but Momo seems not to understand anything! When they play superheroes, he dresses up as a muffin man. ("That doesn’t even make sense!" says the sister). When they play Acorn-Pong, they can’t believe Momo doesn’t understand the rules. I love this line so much, it really has the cadence of childhood: “Every squirrel, flying or not, knows how to play Acorn-Pong! Every squirrel except Momo.” The squirrels are so frustrated that they can’t take it, Momo is not fun! and sister bursts out with “we should have invited Stinky George instead.” When they find Momo crying and packing his suitcase to leave, they wonder if they have taken it too far. They apologize: “We didn’t mean that think about Stinky George” and ask him to stay. After that, they try things Momo’s way, finding out that Acorn-Pong actually is pretty tasty, and that superheroes can include pastry power. (Somehow, this book has a queer vibe). When it’s time to leave, Momo does it in his own way (by flying).

I love this book. I love it so much. Although I easily read it to my youngest son 50 million times, I never tired of it. It captures that feeling so perfectly – the awkwardness of first meeting, the anticipation and disappointment, the challenges of difference and the delight of discovery. I can’t recommend it enough.

This time we are all in together! This never-ending challenging time! And yet here are the odes to connection I personally long for, reminding me for the millionth time what life is all about.

Finally, I would be remiss in not reminding people of what I feel to be the BEST EVER book on sibling rivalry, Big Red Lollipop. I include it again at the end of the email, just in case anybody missed it.

Big Red Lollipop
By Rukshana Khan and illustrated by Sophie Blackall

I love this book. Big Red Lollipop does so many things. It talks brilliantly about siblings fighting and making up; it talks about the pressures to assimilate under white supremacy, and how that is hard on both adults and children. And Big Red Lollipop also explains mistakes in a beautiful and compassionate way. This book follows a little girl named Rubina, who has been invited to a birthday party: “There’s going to be games and toys, cake and ice cream! Can I go?” Upon hearing her mother asks her what a birthday party is, Rubina tries to explain that “It’s when they celebrate the day you were born.” As her mothers asks her “why they do that? (“They just do! Can I go?”) her little sister Sana begin to beg to go with Rubina. I can’t take her, Rubina exclaims, she’s not invited! And yet, her mother makes the fatal mistake of failing to listen, and forces Rubina to her call up her friend and ask if Sana can come. “They’ll laugh at me! They’ll never invite me to another party again!” But her mother insists. The party is not a success. Rubina’s little sister Sana has to win all of the games, and cries “like a baby” during musical chairs.

As salve on the wound: both girls get loot bags to take home. Sana does not know how to make hers last because she is too little: “By bedtime, her candies are all gone, her whistle is broken, and the ruby in her ring is missing. But Rubina has saved her big red lollipop, and puts it “on the top shelf of the fridge to have in the morning.” She dreams all night about how it will taste. But in the morning, “Sana’s already up” and all that is left of the big red lollipop is a triangle stuck to a stick. Sana runs away from her older sister and hides behind their mother, who insists to Rubina it is no big deal. “Ami says, ‘For shame! It’s just a lollipop! Can’t you share with your little sister?’” As our hero says:

I want to cry, but I don’t.
The worst thing is that all the girls at school know if they invite me to their birthday parties, I have to bring Sana.
I don’t get any invitations for a really long time.

And then one day Sana herself receives an invitation to a birthday party. Her little sister Maryam screams, “I wanna go too.” Their mother tells Sana, only fair, and Sana, realizing too late her mistake, begs and pleads: “Sana’s begging so hard she’s crying, but still Ami won’t listen.” As Rubina sits there, she thinks quietly:

“I could just watch her have to take Maryam. I could just let her make a fool of herself at that party. I could just let her not be invited to any more parties, but something makes me tap Ami on the shoulder and tell her that she shouldn’t make Sana take Maryam. Ami listens, and so “Sana gets to go by herself.” After the party, Sana knocks on Rubina’s door. In her hand is a big green lollipop. And “after that we’re friends.”

Oh, the struggles of childhood. Hearing Sana and Rubina desperately crying to their mother to understand, which Ami can’t for all of her own complex reasons do, I thought back to the many times that my sons have pleaded desperately for something that I did not let them have. The mistakes that we parents make in not understanding – for all sorts of systemic reasons and also reasons of having left behind the world of children for the world of adults. All of the mistakes made that shape a life, and yet also the profound learning and pleasure of connection between these two sisters that emerges from these fault lines. Somewhere sometime in a book that I still can’t locate (another mistake), the great Indigenous thinker Patricia Monture-Angus said that mistakes are the foundation of learning, and how true, how true this is. I hope that, like me, this book will inspire you towards self-compassion and hopefulness when thinking about mistakes in your own lives.

[With thanks to Naomi Danis (whose book I Hate Everyone I adore) for this book recommendation].

Until Soon,
Shoshana