[Monday Reading] Voices Of Grief in Picturebooks for Children from Argentina and Canada

Myra here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (new host of Monday reading: Kathryn T at Book Date). Since two of our friends, Linda from Teacher Dance and Tara from A Teaching Life have been joining this meme for quite awhile now, we thought of joining this warm and inviting community. 

I featured both of these picturebooks during my recent talk at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content for their Digital Symposium last October 03. These are both sensitively-written titles that articulate grief with such subtlety and truth. Perfect books to read for All Souls’ Day.

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Some Days [Amazon | Book Depository]

Written and Illustrated by Maria Wernicke Translated by Lawrence Schimel
Published by Amazon Crossing Kids (2020)
ISBN: 542022517 (ISBN13: 9781542022514). Review copy provided by publisher. Book photos taken by me.

This is what I said about the book during my session at AFCC:

In Some Days from Argentina, beautifully translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel, a young girl conceives of a passageway in her yard, that is there some days, but not all days. The passageway leads her to someone who made her feel safe, warm, and protected – and who is now gone. But it doesn’t mean she will stop looking.

What I loved most about this picturebook is how grief was interwoven seamlessly into every day life and the routines one goes through each day, such as doing the laundry or hanging the clothes out to dry. There is also quiet in the white spaces, cleverly designed to convey a sense of emptiness, the characters vivid, stark, and unsmiling against a backdrop of white.

I love the effective use of color – the bright reds against a predominantly monochromatic palette. There is a certainty that one can only live with grief, in the hopes that some days, the passage to the other side will be there, bright and inviting.

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The Phone Booth In Mr. Hirota’s Garden [Amazon | Book Depository]

Written By Heather Smith Illustrated by Rachel Wada
Published by Orca Book Publishers(2019)
ISBN: 1459821033 (ISBN13: 9781459821033). Bought a copy of the book. Book photos taken by me.

This is what I said about the book during my session at AFCC:

The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden is actually based on the real story of a man named Itaru Sasaki who built a phone booth in his garden as a way to deal with his grief after his cousin died in 2010. The phone was naturally disconnected but Sasaki thought his words would “ride the wind to his loved one.”

When a tsunami struck the coastal town of Otsuchi – pretty much like what happens in the book – thousands of mourners flocked to the phone booth, attempting to speak with their loved ones whom they have lost.

This book caught me sideways – there is this shared communal attempt to experience and cope with grief that is deeply individual, but also keenly shared and almost distributed throughout the members of the community.

I remember hugging this book close to me as soon as I finished reading it. Then I called my 18 year old daughter, and read it aloud again to her, my voice choking towards the end. Then I re-read it once more. There is muted and angry grief, yes, but there is also both a holding on and letting go with a phone connected to the ether, as one sends hopeful, longing voice messages to winds that have swept past one’s life. This is a beautiful book. Find it.

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#ReadIntl2020 Update: The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden – Rachael Wada is Canadian of Japanese-Cantonese ethnicity.

Some Days – Maria Wernicke is from Argentina: 36 (out of target 30). Translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel.