Mama - Hardcover

Schick, Eleanor

3.5

6 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761450602 ISBN 13: 9780761450603

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Corp/Ccb, 2000

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A child remembers special moments with Mama and starts to feel better after grieving over her death, in a soothing picture book with a message of hope for young children learning to cope after a loss.

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From the Inside Flap:

Mama, you've been gone for a long time. I still miss you. Louise says it's important to remember how it was when you were here.

And so, a little girl remembers . . . the night her mother told her she was sick and might not get well. How they sat on the bed in the summer night and waited for the moon to rise. The girl recalls the last fall day her mother could take her to the park and push her on the swings. Soon you'll be pumping all by yourself and you won't even need me. But the little girl couldn't imagine not needing her mother. Then, when Louise came to help her mother make dinner and they sang together, the daughter drew the moon. Louise came every day after that, and stayed later.

When her mother died, the little girl cried and cried and Louise just held and rocked her. And, when the daughter said that her mother wouldn't have left her if she loved her, it was Louise who helped her see how her mother was with her still. Then the full moon rose, and the little girl could feel herself beginning to believe it would be alright.

Watercolor paintings capture the bittersweet moments that a mother and her young daughter share as they deal with the inevitable in this poignant portrayal of death. Simply presented, this direct and touching narration conveys both hard truths and tender reassurances.

From School Library Journal:

Kindergarten-Grade 3-A small girl remembers the night her mother first told her that she was sick and all the days and nights that followed. She also remembers that when her father told her of her mother's death, she felt "like I was spinning off the edge of the world." In simple language, she describes her grief and her feelings of abandonment. "If Mama really loved me, she wouldn't have left." But slowly, she begins to move into a stage of acceptance, where she can play with her friend, swing in the playground, and sing with the housekeeper while dinner is cooking, though she knows her mother will always be in her heart. The illustrations, rendered in soft-toned watercolors with rounded outlines, depict the relationships between the child and the adults in her life as they hug, comfort, or reassure her. The pictures give the child a dreamy, introspective quality as she is shown looking out at the moon or drawing a picture. This is effective bibliotherapy, written in language and with familiar images that youngsters can understand; it neither evades nor minimizes the feelings that a child in this situation might have. It would be useful for an adult to use with a youngster who has lost a parent.
Marian Drabkin, Richmond Public Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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