Mama [Hardcover]

Eleanor Schick (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up

It's not ever easy losing a parent, but it's especially hard for a child. With her mother gone, memory alone connects one little girl in New York City to the love they shared, to the security she felt. Time passes. So much feels so far away. Yet, one night, the moon rises just so...bringing her back to moonrises her mother and she watched together.

I could feel you near me. I could feel you telling me, "It's going to be alright." I could feel myself believing that it would be.

Soothing watercolor illustrations reinforce the book's message of hope, offering comfort to young children learning to cope.

Editorial Reviews

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.

From Booklist

Schick makes this gentle exploration of a child's grief over the death of her mother more immediate by relating the story in the daughter's first-person narrative. The girl remembers her mother's announcement of the illness, the introduction of a loving caretaker, the mother's death and its aftermath, and the girl's own eventual acceptance--not of the death, but of her mother's continuing presence through memories. The central image of hope is the moon, which lights the way for the daughter's reintegrating her mother in her life. In keeping with the book's rich tone, Schick's watercolors have a softness broken only by occasional bare branches of the trees. The author offers no glib solutions to loss; rather, she paints an honest portrait of one girl's grief that should resonate with children who have themselves experienced the death of a parent. Connie Fletcher

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Children's Books (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761450602
• ISBN-13: 978-0761450603
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,842,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Poignant Story of a Child Coping with the Loss of her Mother, November 8, 2005

By 

Sherry Ellis - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Mama (Hardcover)

Mama is the story of a little girl learning that her mother is sick and is going to die, and then coping with that death once it happens. The watercolor illustrations succeed in capturing the emotions as they unfold. Mama is a story to share with a child who is struggling with the loss of a parent. It acknowledges the pain that the child feels, but also offers the tender reassurance that things will be OK.