It is National Siblings Day. 80% of Americans have at least one sibling. I am in that percentage. I have one brother. Admittedly we haven’t always gotten along, but he is mine for better or for worse.

My daughter, however, is of the 20% who do not have a sibling, and I am constant wondering if she is missing out on that connection. She will quickly tell you that she is not, but I spend too many sleepless nights wondering what life will look like for her after her father and I are gone.

And then there are my brother’s children. He has three beautiful girls of his own, and his soon-to-be-wife has two daughters of her own. I have watched gaggle of girls become a family in the last year. It warmed my heart when the youngest called the others her sisters.

But more and more, I think they are the exceptions. I think more and more families struggle to stay close. With all the stresses of work and children, I think sibling relationships fall apart. But three books that will remind you of the importance of family are:

During a 1964 blizzard, Dr. David Henry is forced to deliver his own twins. His son is born perfectly – 10 fingers and 10 toes, all normal, but his daughter delivered minutes later has Down’s Syndrome. Panicking, he makes a split second decision, telling his nurse to take his daughter away to an institution and never speak of it again. However, the nurse cannot part with the infant and disappears to another city to raise the child. This decision alters the course of two families’ lives. Norah, David’s wife is inconsolable and eventually cause the marriage to break. Paul, the son of David and Norah, has to raise himself, wondering why his parents are continuously grieving. But Phoebe, David and Norah’s daughter, is raised in a happy home, and Phoebe grows up into a beautiful, young woman.

Rill Foss and her 3 sisters and 1 brother live on a Mississippi shantyboat near Memphis in 1939. Her father has to rush her mother to the hospital and leaves Rill in charge. She handles the task well until strangers claiming to be from the state show up and take the children to a state orphanage. Rill doesn’t panic at first because they are promised to be reunited with the parents shortly. But Rill struggles and fails to keep the family together.

In present day, Avery Foss is a success. She has a promising law career; she is newly married. But when Avery returns home to aid her ailing father, she discovers a family secret that will either heal the family or destroy it.

The Vignes twins will always be identical, but after running away at 16 years of age, their lives will take every different paths. Stella cuts ties with her family and discovers that she can pass for white. She eventually marries a white man who knows nothing of her past. They have a daughter that lives as a white woman. While her sister Desiree lives in the same small town they grew up in, marries a black man, and raises her daughter as black. Their lives could not be any more different. The daughters bring the sisters back together in their old age. Stella fears this reunion because her life was built on lies.