Review by Booklist Review
After hearing the voice of his sister, who died before he was born, a small white boy, now contemplating death, is whisked off by her corporeal ghost for a dreamlike bike ride. In the glowing night, they traverse narrow European streets, gray-green woods, and sprawling fields before ascending toward the moon. The boy follows Sis to the cemetery where her body rests, the looming hospital where she passed, and the park where she liked to play. As they board a rowboat, he becomes aware of an "old, dried-out sadness," and Aerts leans into metaphor--without being too abstract--helping young readers tie the visuals of death to the subtle feelings associated: "It covered the walls of our house like wallpaper. Sometimes you found it in Mom's soup, in the jobs Dad did around the house, or in a woolly hat for when it's cold." Törnqvist, working exclusively through wide-frame double-page spreads, evokes the gentlest melancholy, incorporating all the shadows and light of a sunset into atmospheric backdrops. A lovely sense of introspection arises from the framing--a small boy tucked into a wide bed, sitting at a broad table--and beyond the siblings, no other characters grace the page, even when the parents appear in the thoughtful dialogue. A wondrous guide to young souls and their awakening sense of life, death, and emotion.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Horn Book Review
This gentle, moving (and very beautifully illustrated) Dutch import opens as a young boy sits alone at an enormous but almost empty table, placed across the double-page spread at an uneasy angle. "The first time I heard her I was sitting at the table eating some marzipan." The child, as directed, covers his ears and hears his deceased sister. Later that night, the narrator's sister, glowing brightly against the dark bedroom, tugs her brother out of bed and on a journey to visit the hospital where she died and the cemetery where she is buried. The boy is able, as part of the nighttime visit, to give his sister her first taste of marzipan, and she, through their matter-of-fact conversation, gives him the knowledge that she is not in pain. Both the sadness and the deep love the child carries for his sister are conveyed in Tornqvist's mixed-media art. The colors are soft and inviting: the sky is streaked with blue and purple, the churchyard is a vibrant green hillside. Flocks of birds fly across many pages. In spite of the fundamentally sad subject, this is a story about healing. The final spread shows the narrator sitting at the same enormous table, but this time it is covered with a tablecloth and delicious foods. He no longer feels quite so alone. Maeve Visser Knoth November/December 2020 p.63(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
