I KNOW THE WHALE

A song has ended.

Books for children about death are complex things. Margaret Wise Brown succinctly summarized death in 1958’s The Dead Bird. Tomie dePaola made it personal in 1973’s Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs, and Anastasia Higginbotham demystified it in 2016’s Death Is Stupid. Yardi and Schu seemingly tip their hats to each of these works. Accompanied by Schu’s evocative art, dominated by inky blues and blacks and rippling curves, Yardi’s words are simple but lightly poetic: “I know the whale lived. I know the whale sang. But when it washes ashore, the whale isn’t singing anymore.” But she doesn’t shy away from the unkinder aspects: “It is wonderful and horrible and beautiful and stinky.” As the light-skinned young protagonist explores the corpse on the beach, Papa guides the exploration. A few pages in, readers may question if Papa was really there; the protagonist asks, “Where is the whale now?,” only to be met with a double-page spread of silence as the youngster stares at a picture of Papa on a dresser in a dark room. Later, while drawing a whale on the street in chalk, the protagonist wonders: “When were we last together? Will I ever be with them again?” The answer, in regard to the whale, comes a few years later, when its bones are put on display at a local museum. And Papa? That answer is yet to come.

A stirring conversation starter.