LOVE from Alfie McPoonst, The Best Dog Ever.

I'm giving this post an anchor in time:  

Ending first full week of official COVID 19 sequester. Daily news briefs make for an odd mix of confusion and specificity. I seek sources to validate that we are all part of a single humanity on a precious blue planet, We are more alike than our differences. Our happiness and grief are universal experiences. May we never forget that. While various expert (and decidedly NON-expert) voices debate a potential death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic, life also proceeds, and ends, in its normal course.

In the past several days I've had friends sadly part with elderly parents and beloved pets. I'm not equating those two experiences, nor comparing those painful-though-predictable deaths to corona virus suffering or the death-defying struggles of healthcare professionals. 

All engage us in varying degrees of suffering, loss, and grief. 

Kane Miller 2020

For this fraught time I offer a gentle and warm-hearted new picture book. The premise is that a departed, beloved pooch delivers consoling letters to his loving young person, easing them through wrenching grief to eventually arrive at acceptance. 

LOVE FROM ALFIE McPOONST, The Best Dog Ever is written by Dawn McNiff and illustrated by Patricia Metola.

The text is delivered through charmingly lighthearted and tender notes from the beloved-but-deceased dog, Alfie McPoonst. 

Not everyone is a "pet" person, but many of us are. We know all to well that deep angst when the time has come for a pet's loyal devotion to be released, for a long, well-lived life to end in good-bye. Adults comprehend the comparatively short lives of pets and anticipate that ending. Many young children have never breathed a day wtihout that pet-partner in their lives, at their sides. 

There is a lovely bi-level expectation within this story and book design. Adults will recognize the parents' effort to console a heartbroken and lonely child, delivering letters addressed as only a dog would:

TO IZZY

THE DOG BED

THE FAMILY ROOM

IZZY'S HOUSE

NEAR THE LITTLE PARK

Young audiences will cling to this possibility, to this reassurance that Alfie has managed to reconnect and reassure, to comfort and encourage from his new life as a Sky Dog. The return address is equally appealing, and Alfie's first message clarifies what readers of any age already realize:

Dear Izzy,

I'm a Sky Dog now.

I live in Dog Heaven,

because I died.

Letters arrive filled with smile-inducing descriptions of a new life of fun, treats, and discoveries. Illustrations and page turns reveal the passage of time through clothing changes, seasonal progressions, and stages of grieving and adjusting. The more time passes and the more Alfie revels in his doggy delights, the more we witness a family finding comfort in shared memories and growing love. 

The conclusion is both reassuring and promising, delivered with a childlike voice and charm to match Alfie's tone. It is a satisfying journey to peace of mind through text and concept.

It is in the illustrations, though, that the journey introduces, deepens, and ends its emotional arc. With swaths of color and  fine intentional lines, as real and raw as the ache of loss, Metola welcomes a universal audience to the experiences shared on the page. Little Izzy and parents are distinctly white, but are displaying relationships that transcend race and ethnicity in recognizable ways. 

The opening endpapers depict the moments of first goodbye to Alfie, with the family gathered, backs to the reader, near a small marker in the meadow: "ALFIE". From then on  every image is a balance of small meaningful details and washed, subtle progress. Humans and Sky Dogs appears in relation to each other, evolving into new patterns and paths.The concluding endpapers mirror the opening scene, but characters are now facing forward, moving, smiling, with lively little signs of new life tucked among the grasses.

In this time of worry, fear, and loss, let's work hard to pull back our focus and provide a perspective from the starry skies, a view that reminds us we are all shipmates on our shared BLUE BOAT HOME, music and lyrics by Peter Mayer, 2002. Listen HERE.