WHERE ARE YOU, EDDIE?

Eddie is gone. Where can he be?

A lanky, gray-haired, bearded man wanders into the kitchen searching for his son. Though he knows that “Eddie’s not coming back,” Meg, the man’s rather philosophical black-and-white cat, tells him, “If you look for him, you’ll find him. Not the way he was, but he’ll be there.” And off the protagonist goes, visiting areas and people who evoke unexpectedly happy memories of Eddie as a child and teenager: the game that young Eddie and Dad played on the bus when the boy got antsy, Eddie leaping through the air during a game of field hockey, the whole family taking trips to the beach. After a day of reminiscing, the man comes home, realizing that though Eddie is no longer here, he lives on in the memories of those left behind. Though Rosen never explicitly states where Eddie has gone, it will be apparent to adults that he has died; some children may need additional context. A companion title to the author’s acclaimed Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, illustrated by Quentin Blake (2005), this is a lovely look at the long tail of the always evolving, complex process of grief, conveyed through gentle first-person text and smudgy mixed-media illustrations that evoke a tenderly nostalgic tone. While the previous title focused on the raw emotions of fresh loss, this one explores the contentment that emerges through the passage of time. Father and son are light-skinned.

A beautiful meditation on grief—both the aching sadness and the unexpected moments of joy.