STILL MINE

A gentle reminder that those we love and lose can live in our hearts and memories.

Each page of Pillemer's debut tale of love and grief weaves a poignant thread by capturing moments in time between people who love one another: parent and child playing together in the morning, friends swinging outside, a grandparent and grandchild enjoying the rain. The gentle, poetic prose is bolstered by Murray's soft illustrations; muted colors depict a series of relationships frozen happily in time, days marked with happiness, camaraderie, and an absence of heartache. But as genre-savvy readers might be able to guess, tomorrow won't be as perfect. The second half of the book begins with a beautiful and heart-wrenching description of an abrupt loss: “But then you tiptoed by me / and hopped a ride on the breeze.” The grief of the children depicted in the book is conceptualized in terms of the shared moments that comprise the sweetness of the book’s first half. The loneliness of bereavement and the longing for those small moments are not belittled or glossed over even if the process of healing seems a bit rushed. Although carefully devoid of nominal spirituality, the message the story sends is clear: The lost loved one is still there, still theirs, living on in the memory of the love they shared. Characters are depicted as racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Tender and touching.