If you haven’t flipped through a Shaun Tan book yet, prepare to have your "picture book" expectations completely dismantled. This isn't a "once upon a time" story with a tidy moral at the end. The Red Tree is a series of surreal, often haunting paintings that follow a young girl through a day where "darkness settles" and "nothing to look forward to" feels like a physical weight.

The book uses incredible imagery—a giant, suffocating fish hovering over a street, the girl trapped in a bottle, or standing on a crumbling stage—to illustrate what it feels like when your mental health takes a nosedive. But, true to the title, a tiny red leaf follows her on every page, eventually blooming into a vibrant red tree in her bedroom. It’s about the persistence of hope, even when it’s invisible.

We live in a weird digital moment. Our kids are bombarded with "brain rot" content—shoutout to Skibidi Toilet and the endless "Ohio" memes where everything is "cursed" or "weird." While that stuff is mostly harmless nonsense, it creates a very loud, very frantic digital environment.

When a kid feels genuinely sad or overwhelmed, they often don't have the vocabulary to distinguish between "I'm bored" and "I feel a profound sense of existential dread." The Red Tree gives them that vocabulary. It validates that the world can feel "Ohio" (in the sense of being unsettling or wrong) without making them feel like they're "broken" for noticing it.

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If The Red Tree resonates with your family, you might be looking for other ways to bridge the gap between "fine" and "not fine." Here are our top recommendations for media that treats kids' emotions with the respect they deserve.

This is quite possibly the most beautiful video game ever made. There is no "dying" or "losing" in the traditional sense. You play as a girl moving through a world that has lost its color. As she deals with her grief, colors return to the world. It’s a perfect companion to The Red Tree because it uses the same visual-first approach to complex emotions.

While the first Inside Out was about Sadness, the sequel dives deep into the "Anxiety" and "Ennui" that hit right around middle school. It’s a bit more "on the nose" than Shaun Tan’s work, but it provides a very practical framework for kids to identify which "emotion" is currently driving the console in their head.

If your child is dealing with the heavy topic of loss, Spiritfarer is a "cozy management game" about dying. You play as Stella, a ferrymaster to the deceased. You build a boat, care for spirits, and eventually help them move on. It’s incredibly moving and handles the concept of "the end" with a gentleness that is rare in any medium.

This is the "hug" to The Red Tree's "heavy sigh." It’s full of gentle reminders that "asking for help isn't giving up, it's refusing to give up." It’s a great book to keep on the nightstand for those days when the world feels like a bit much.

Check out our guide on the best cozy games for kids

While The Red Tree is a picture book, it’s not necessarily for toddlers.

There is a tendency as parents to want to "fix" things immediately. When we see our kid looking at a book about a girl who feels like "nothing to look forward to," our instinct is to say, "But look at all the great things you have! We’re going to Disney World in six months!"

Don't do that.

The power of The Red Tree is that it doesn't try to fix the girl's day. It just sits with her in it. The red tree only appears at the very end, in her own room, after she's lived through the whole day.

Instead of lecturing, try these prompts while looking at the art:

This moves the conversation away from "Why are you sad?" (which is a high-pressure question) to "Let's look at this art together," which is much lower stakes.

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There is no "inappropriate" content in The Red Tree—no violence, no language, no "adult" themes in the traditional sense.

However, because the book is so effective at depicting depression, it can be a "trigger" for kids who are already in a very dark place. If your child is struggling with significant mental health issues, read the book yourself first. For most kids, it’s a relief to see their feelings mirrored, but for a child in an acute crisis, the imagery of isolation might feel a bit too heavy without a parent right there to navigate it with them.

The Red Tree is a "must-own" for the family library. It’s not a book you’ll read every night like Goodnight Moon, but it’s the book you’ll pull off the shelf when you see your kid staring at a wall, or when the weight of school/social media/life seems to be dimming their light.

It’s a reminder that the "red tree" is always there, waiting to bloom, even on the days when the giant fish is following you down the street.

Check out our guide to visual storytelling and emotional intelligence