Review by Booklist Review
ldquo;Sadness has come to live with me, and I am building it a shelter" begins this reflective picture book. Depicted as a conical structure made with tree branches and twigs, the shelter features a window, curtains, and lights. It sits in the garden, where changing seasons will bring winter storms, nesting birds, blooming roses, and falling leaves. Though never named or explained, the sadness is recognized and accepted by the narrator, who is portrayed in the illustrations as a thoughtful boy. He sometimes gives his sadness some space, but each one is there for the other when needed. Sometimes they hug and cry and talk, but often they just sit quietly or walk outside the shelter, looking at the world and discovering its beauty together. Created with pen-and-ink, watercolor, acrylic, and digital elements. Litchfield's illustrations depict sadness imaginatively as a large, rounded, semi-transparent being with long, thin legs and arms and an expressive face. Inspired by the writings of a Holocaust survivor, Booth's graceful, understated text is open to interpretation according to the listener's experiences, but the fundamental theme of accepting one's sadness can resonate at any age. The use of present-tense narration makes the story all the more poignant and powerful. A beautiful, moving picture book.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1--5--This story imagines sadness as a fuzzy blob with stick arms and legs that lives right outside the child, a metaphor intended to help readers accept and cope with sadness. Booth and Litchfield propose not only accepting sadness, but actually trying to take care of it by building a shelter and keeping it safe. The shelter has sensory items that sadness might find pleasant, e.g., a candle, lamplight, or the scent of roses. There are also times to leave sadness alone and to go experience other feelings. The art work is simple but evocative, in an atmospheric palette befitting the story's content. This would be an excellent conversation starter for readers who are grappling with strong emotions or for lessons on SEL. VERDICT An excellent choice for collections needing resources on social emotional learning, aimed at those students who already think abstractly. --Debbie Tanner, S. D. Spady Montessori Elem., FL
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A child tends to their sadness. "I am building a shelter for my sadness and welcoming it inside," declares a skinny White child with brown hair. They begin to pile sticks in a clearing, surrounded by tall, thin tree trunks rich with twinkling lights. Illuminating the scene in a pale teal glow is their sadness, an oval-shaped cluster of sketch lines that might be mistaken for Humpty Dumpty's ghost. Throughout, forest and light frame the sadness as its human caretaker "giv[es] it a space" to do "anything it needs to." It can be loud or quiet, it can run or stand still, it can sit in darkness or light, "or anything in between." It can even "breath in" (a regrettable typo) the smell of roses that bloom around the shelter that the child lovingly maintains. The sadness is as cute as a pensive figure can be, and the decorative whimsy of Litchfield's illustrations softens the melancholy. Psychologically, it seems useful and healthy to visualize compassion and acceptance toward one's own feelings, and these meditative scenes provide gentle emotional prompts in that direction. Still, the metaphor plods on a bit longer than is compelling; by the time the child starts visiting their sadness every day with tea, the point feels belabored beyond meaning. The pair's final walk into the sunset reinforces the complex, necessary idea that beautiful and difficult emotions can coexist. Moody contemplation made engaging with luminous artwork. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
