Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Away
Illustrator: Qin Leng
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Groundwood Books, 2017 ISBN: 978-1554984831
Summer vacation is just around the corner and soon a little girl will be heading off to summer camp for the first time. She does not want to go. At all. She and her mother are both busy people, and so they leave sticky notes for each other around the house. In her notes the little girl makes it clear that she is not going to camp, “Not EVER!”
Back and forth the notes between the two go. Mom tells her daughter that she has got her bug spray, which everyone knows is a necessity at camp. Her daughter, in response, tells her mother that she cannot leave Lester, the family cat, because he needs her too much. On the family calendar Mom adds a sticky note indicating that she and Lester will have a “movie night” while the little girl is gone.
Then Mimsy, Mom’s mother, comes to visit, and the little girl finds out that when Mom left for camp she cried. Mom explains that her tears “didn’t last” and her memories of sleepover camp are still “as warm as biscuits.”
Going away from home to attend summer camp for the first time can be hard at first. This wonderful story shows us how a mother reassures her little girl about the upcoming adventure. We also see how the two of them have a warm and loving relationship that is full of humor, patience, and good times. Children will enjoy seeing how Lester the cat manages to get himself included in most of the scenes in the story.
