The Night Dad Went to Jail

A rabbit named Sketch helps open a conversation most adults don’t know how to start. In The Night Dad Went to Jail, he sees his father arrested, faces teasing at school and learns what visiting a parent behind bars looks like. One especially concrete detail: a jail visit means talking through glass by phone, while a prison visit includes a hug and time sitting together.

Melissa Higgins’s picture book is aimed at children ages four to eight. It gives scared, angry, sad and worried feelings room on the page, then shows Sketch finding support and staying connected through letters and drawings. That makes it a useful starting point for a caregiver helping a young child understand a parent’s absence, rather than a book to hand over without a conversation.

Adults get help, too: fact and tip boxes, a glossary and additional resources. The appeal here isn’t a tidy happy ending. It’s having something concrete to read together when the questions are big and the words are hard to find.