My Father's Arms Are a Boat

Where Rebecca Cobb's Missing Mommy, reviewed on page 83, is all plain speaking and simple comfort about the death of a mother, this book from Norway is indirect and mysterious in its depiction of a grieving father and son. A little boy is having trouble sleeping, his unease echoed in the cool, sparely awry picture of his bedroom, his pillow providing the only spot of color. His father takes him into the similarly gloomy living room to comfort him; the two discuss the birds and the fox that live in the surrounding woods until the boy, after recounting his grandmother's belief that "the red birds are dead people," asks his father if Mommy will ever wake up again. Honest, but gently changing the subject, the father replies, "No, not where she is now. Should we go out and look at the stars?" And, in a sequence reminiscent of Charlotte Zolotow's The Summer Night, so they do, the monochromatic illustrations now seeming enchanted rather than sad. When the two return inside, the red glow of the fire warms the page, the family, and the reader, as the father reassures the son that "everything will be all right." The quiet, intimate text and enigmatic paper-collage and ink illustrations make a world of their own that commends interest beyond the therapeutic. roger sutton