Bibi Dumon Tak

This is great -- clever, entertaining and absolutely packed with animal facts. I love that the animals are commenting on each other. I love that they call out the howler monkey for fake news. I love the illustrations. It's excellent, but way more about facts than narrative.

I'm not a parent -- of human kids, anyway -- but I've been around dogs nearly my entire life, and I've read a great many dog books for adults. The last chapters of those books are virtually guaranteed to choke me up, and so I opened my copy of "Scout's Heaven" with more than a little trepidation, knowing that I held a children's book about the death of a beloved family pet. Of course I was misty-eyed in a matter of minutes ... and honestly, I'd worry a little about anyone who wasn't.

The book show more is a short read for an adult -- ten minutes or so -- but feels very well-suited to be read aloud to a youngster. The difficult subject is handled in a straightforward but gentle way, and the subtle, ethereal line art surrounding the text feels just right for the story. The ending will leave both adult and child with a feeling of warmth to replace the emptiness, which is exactly the purpose of a little book like this.

In short, the book is heartbreaking ... but it's also really, really lovely. I'm very glad I read it. show less

Often, our first brush with death is with the loss of a pet. This story touches on the emptiness, the concern and the confusion that the passing causes, but the illustrations, though simple, enhance the impact tremendously. On the rainy night that Scout takes her final breath, the shadow is so large and so dark that we are aware of almost nothing else. As the story unfolds, the shadow gradually shrinks and eventually the area around the shadow starts to fill with line drawings representing show more memories of the things that Scout did—memories of her life. She is no longer in “two places”, rather her heaven lies in the hearts of the people who loved her. This story handles an incredibly sad subject sweetly without a sugar coating. show less

Lovely in its simplicity.

(Full disclose: I received a free copy of this book for review through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.)

-- 3.5 stars --

It is raining the day Scout takes her last breath.

Little Brother peppers his family with questions: Where has Scout gone, if she's no longer here? Does it rain above the clouds? Who will feed Scout? Will she have a sea to splash in and other animals to chase? They answer his questions as best they know how and, after burying Scout, coax him to show more sleep.

The next day, they wake to an impossibly sunny sky. (When you're in the throes of grief, everything good and pure and beautiful seems a personal affront.)

...and the sound of Scout's barking, coming from way up high.

Scout's Heaven is a simple yet elegant book about loss and grief for dog lovers young and old. The whimsical illustrations nicely complement the story, which is more understated here than in similar books I've read. With books about "pet" loss, I measure stars in tears shed, and I didn't bawl nearly as hard as I normally do. But maybe this is a good thing, especially when trying to explain death to kids.

The vague references to Heaven definitely give the book a religious bent, but as an atheist I appreciated it just the same. The message could easily be tweaked to fit with my own favorite imagery, that of the souls of the ghosts in His Dark Materials breaking apart like so many champagne bubbles as they leave the land of the dead and join their daemons in the living world. Particles breaking apart and then coming back together to create new and wonderful creatures. Scout may be in the ground, but she's everywhere else, too: in the air and sky, the sycamore tree that shades your bedroom window and the squirrel that calls it home. Listen closely, and you can hear her voice.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2018/06/19/scouts-heaven-by-bibi-dumon-tak-and-annemar... show less