As a military child I moved house and school A LOT! Always leaving behind family, friends and favourite places. It was apparently character building but though I am grateful for my childhood experiences I feel as an adult I have no roots, no real connection to one place or one group of people. Perhaps that says more about me than my experience?
The Comet tells the story of a little girl who moves from her countryside family home beside the sea to a flat in the city.
It is the girl and her father. The pair clearly adore one another but are experiencing a painful loss and learning to live with their grief. The house move exacerbates everything and heightens all emotions.
The little girl misses the sound of the sea, the clear starry skies and the greenery of her old home. She misses time spent with her father and through all of this she is missing her mother.
Her father is feeling all of this and more. I recognise the pained expressions of a grieving parent trying to hold it together for their child.
The little girl is lost. She does not feel that she belongs in this new home in the city … until one night she sees a comet just as she once saw one in her life before.
The comet sparks a magical dream sequence of the little girls feelings bursting. She is broken and needs love and support and the comet gives her a chance to release a cry for help.
A cry that shocks her father at first but then he sees and he knows that it is time to build their home together, to find a way to live in this new place with their loss. To find their new normal.
The pair come together and make their new house a home. A place where they can be and belong.
This story is told with very few words allowing readers to take from the carefully chosen text and stunning illustrations exactly what they need.
This is a powerful story of love and loss, a story of belonging.
There is so much magic and imagination on every page.
I wonder what this incredible book will say to you?