Alex and his mother (both portrayed with pale skin), along with their dog, Nico, sometimes go on adventures together\u2014but often, \u201cMommy\u2026wants to play with us but her body can\u2019t.\u201d Over a week, Mom experiences a new symptom each day\u2014her specific illness isn\u2019t disclosed\u2014which Alex then explains to Nico, using easy-to-understand similes: \u201cMama can\u2019t hike with us: her body is stiff like a ROBOT.\u201d Each explanation concludes with his knowledge that his mother cares about him: She can\u2019t go to the movies, but \u201cI know she loves us by the way she plays puzzles with us when we return.\u201d Although the story acknowledges that Alex often feels sad\u2014as many kids would\u2014it ends with a firmly hopeful assertion that Mom is seeing doctors to get well, and \u201cbetter days\u201d are ahead. It\u2019s a tough subject for a kids\u2019 book, but the straightforward text is perfectly augmented by Rewerenda\u2019s soft, pastellike illustrations, often featuring literal depictions of Mom\u2019s described discomfort\u2014inviting readers to imagine, for instance, how it would feel to carry an elephant. It\u2019s an impressively compassionate story about how persistent illness can affect a family.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex and his mother (both portrayed with pale skin), along with their dog, Nico, sometimes go on adventures together\u2014but often, \u201cMommy\u2026wants to play with us but her body can\u2019t.\u201d Over a week, Mom experiences a new symptom each day\u2014her specific illness isn\u2019t disclosed\u2014which Alex then explains to Nico, using easy-to-understand similes: \u201cMama can\u2019t hike with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}