The Day Tiger Rose Said Goodbye

K-Gr 2—A poetic picture book about a cat that knows she is at the end of her life. Tiger Rose is old and hurting, and she senses that the time has come for her to leave. No catastrophic event harkens her death, just a natural instinct to go off by herself. It's this sense of nature taking its course that is very soothing and makes the death acceptable to readers. Mirroring the soft tone of Yolen's text are LaMarche's light-filled pastel illustrations. Both elements have an ethereal quality to them, which suggests that this is a celebration of the cat's life as she exits peacefully and with dignity. "She never once looked back as she climbed away from life, leaving her old and tired body behind….now part of the earth, the air, the sky, the sun—And all." Children who are experiencing loss will find this book a comfort. Pair it with Judith Viorst's The Tenth Good Thing About Barney (Atheneum, 1971) and Bill Cochran's The Forever Dog (HarperCollins, 2007) for reassurance that death is a natural part of life.—Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA