The Scar - Tapa dura

A beautifully, evocative book * Carousel * The most poignant of all * The Bookseller * A rare solace for a bereaved child. And a sentimental education for everyone else * Guardian * A book to be recommended as much to adults facing a child's grief as to the child himself * Books For Keeps * the central motif of the boy's scraped knee allows for a positive ending as the wound heals - although of course it does leave a scar * The School Librarian *

When the boy in this story wakes up to find that his mother has died, he is overwhelmed with sadness, anger and fear that he will forget her. He shuts all the windows to keep in his mother's familiar smell and scratches open the cut on his knee to help him recall her comforting voice. He doesn't know how to speak to his dad any more, and when Grandma visits and throws open the windows, it's more than the boy can take - until she shows him another way to hold on to the feeling of his mum's love. With tenderness, touches of humour and unflinching emotional truth, Charlotte Moundlic captures the loneliness of grief through the eyes of a child, rendered with sympathy and charm in Olivier Tallec's expressive illustrations.