School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-5-Mesmerizing and surreal mixed-media collages draw readers into this intriguing story of the many possibilities Heaven offers. Young Anna's mother has died, and the girl and her father are on their way to the funeral when Anna begins asking her father questions about God and Heaven. Though he is immensely sad and anxious to head toward the church, he slows down, answers his daughter's questions as best he can, and actually smiles as he lets his child ready herself for the sad task ahead. Breathtakingly stunning illustrations take readers on flights of fantasy that can be both beautiful and unsettling. The endpapers at the book's beginning show nails raining down as the pain of loss is relentless. After the father and daughter acknowledge their grief, the final endpapers are optimistically filled with ripe strawberries in place of the painful nails. Beguiling pictures and stirring text may lead to discussions about death and the possibility of an afterlife, helping to ease bereveament.-Maryann H. Owen, Children's Literature Specialist, Mt. Pleasant, WI (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Grief is the unspoken subtext of Hole's (Garmann's Summer) exquisite study of a father and daughter experiencing loss. Anna's father is waiting impatiently for her as she swings in her backyard. As church bells chime in the background, Anna's father is seen holding a bouquet, looking dejected. He tells Anna, "There's someone in the sky sending down nails." As father and daughter begin to talk about God, heaven, and Anna's absent mother, the reason for her absence is implied but never stated: Anna suggests her mother may be weeding the garden in Paradise, since God is so busy. Or, Anna adds, she may have gone to the library. Hole's mixed-media collages perfectly convey the wild, almost hallucinatory flights of Anna's imagination, with images of flying fish, airborne jellyfish, and a giraffe and Elvis Presley half-submerged in water, amid other figures and objects. Even the front and back endpapers become part of the story. The front depicts a rain of nails, the back a rain of strawberries, as Anna had imagined. A gorgeous, poignant book. Ages 6-10. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.