Connection: Being an only child can be very lonely, especially when there is no one to talk to or play with. In reality, the stag was never there but she used her imagination to keep herself safe and company. This is alluded to when she falls asleep with a toy stag in her hand. 

Connection: The connection that I found with the story The Pool and Then Only Child are two children that both felt lonely but they imagined themselves playing with animals. In Pool, the boy imagines himself swimming with sea animals. The animals in both stories act as guides one being a whale and in The Only Child, the little boy also imagines a stag. 

Connection: Children today experience stress and anxiety and the image of this dark cloud may feel very familiar where the problem rests solely on their shoulder. The little boy uses his imagination to depict the struggles he’s going through in his life. Making for a lonely state of feeling, but in the end it also challenges, shapes, pushes, and helps us to discover just how strong and brave and capable we really are. A strong message for those feelings alone in the world. 

Summary: The book Where the Wild Things Are, is a story about a little boy named Max. One night he was not behaving then his mom called him a wild thing, he told his mom "I will eat you up". His mom sent him to bed without eating dinner. That night a forest grew in this room. Then there was an ocean with a private boat for Max. All year he arrived in the wild and the wild thing ward. They tried to scare Max, but he told them to stay still.  He became king of all wild things. He sent the wild things to sleep and then he was left feeling lonely. He wanted to be with people like him and he gave up on being king. The wild thing cried because they did not want him to leave and they got angry at Max. He eventually left in his private boat back home.  

Connection: Where the Wild Things Are follows a boy who feels lonely and misunderstood. Max feels like he never received the right attention from his mom. To cope with the strong feeling of loneliness he imagines he's somewhere else.

Connection: Throughout the story a young girl is coping with feelings of loneliness and depression on her own. In one of the images she says “who are you meant to be” and the illustration is of her drawing a picture of herself on a wall. The illustrations correlate with her descriptions of how she feels.

Connection: The story speaks directly to those of us who are introverted and who feel a bit different too. Oliver lives in a world that may seem lonely, but he moves along using his imagination and creativity with physical forms of comfort, his puppets, and toys. The colors are also muted and the backgrounds on the pages are softly colored making for when Oliver may be feeling lonely. Oliver wants company and achieves that in the end with a real-life friend while still being his unique self. 

Connection: The main character felt lonely when she tried to computer the attention of her family members. Since they were all busy the main character creates a new world with her imagination. She does this to not feel alone and enters a magical place. 

Connection: The connection to the theme was the presentation of an adventure into the imagination for a lonely child whose outlet was done through the arts. A lonely child can have many forms of outlets whether that be a physical form or the use of imagination.