TITLE: In a Jar
BY: Deborah Marcero (G.P. Putnam's Sons, Jan. 21), ages 3-7, 34 pages, $17.99 hardcover, $10.99 Kindle
STORY: Children suffer when people they rely on go away, and not only during recognized traumas like divorce and death. The one kid in class you play with changes schools: This is grief. Memory will fade, but at the time, such loss is painful — a painful lesson in resilience.
Llewellyn is one of literature's many storybook children who look like rabbits. He stuffs bits of his vibrant but elegant world into glass jars. One evening, sunset paints the sky the color of tart cherry syrup, and he goes to the shore to scoop that glowing red into as many jars as he can carry. A rabbit-girl named Evelyn is there, too. He gives her a jar.
Friendship begins. They explore the world, collecting wonders together.
Then Evelyn moves away. Llewellyn's heart is like an empty jar in a gray room.
But it isn't long before he sees a sight so extraordinary he longs to share it with Evelyn: a meteor shower. He collects the falling stars in a jar and mails it to her. When she opens it, stars shower around her. She mails him jars full of her experiences. Their friendship goes on.
One day, another rabbit child is in the woods. Llewellyn gives him a jar.
Lesson learned.
Read to Me is a weekly review of short books.
Style on 01/20/2020