Anna's Heaven

Un très beau livre, en images et en texte qui traite très subtilement de comment confronter un départ sans jamais en parler... comment retomber sur ses pieds. Je pense que la traduction est très réfléchie et réussie.

Il y a le ciel, le paradis, Dieu, les souvenirs, des émotions, des questions qui doivent rester sans réponse. Des jeux de mots, des jeux d'images (merveilleuses).

"Pourquoi [Dieu] n'arrive pas à inventer un système qui permettrait à une douleur de se transformer en douceur?"

J'ai finalement compris la signification de l'averse de clous qui tombe du ciel. Je pense à Bob Dylan: It's a hard rain's gonna fall.

“Do you think that there’s anything on the other side of the mirror?” Anna questions her restless father about her mother’s death. Reflections (her mother’s ghost image follows the mountain’s contours, a teapot mirrors an elephant, Anna and father’s pond reflections) and the text’s opening palindromes underscore the mystery of dying. After Anna plunges into the sky, her grieving father follows her through fanciful wonderings about her mother’s whereabouts and doings. Soon they emerge, Anna ready to accompany him to church. Hole’s surreal photocollaged images haunt from opening endpapers where nails rain down until they accede to raining strawberries at the back.

“Do you think that there’s anything on the other side of the mirror?” Anna questions her restless father about her mother’s death. Reflections (her mother’s ghost image follows the mountain’s contours, a teapot mirrors an elephant, Anna and father’s pond reflections) and the text’s opening palindromes underscore the mystery of dying. After Anna plunges into the sky, her grieving father follows her through fanciful wonderings about her mother’s whereabouts and doings. Soon they emerge, Anna ready to accompany him to church. Hole’s surreal photocollaged images haunt from opening endpapers where nails rain down until they accede to raining strawberries at the back.

My daughter has recently suffered the loss of three grandmothers, so when this book was offered for review, I requested it, thinking it might be helpful to her. The artwork grabbed our attention as soon as it arrived; it is beautiful in a strange, dreamlike way, and includes many intriguing details that make you want to look again and again. Unfortunately, the story did not capture our attention in the same way. My daughter was confused (as was I). We were reading it with a group of children (I'm a teacher), and they were all asking what was happening. Although it was clear to an adult reader that the father in the book is in mourning, the children did not pick up on that from the illustrations; they only saw that he was sad. Overall, show more gorgeous illustrations, but not a book I'd chose to help a child understand death or grief or heaven. show less

This book was so strange, like really strange, but I kind of loved it! When Anna is questioning God's abilities after her mother passes she wishes there was a way to the other side. Her and her dad go into the mysterious hole and arrive in what seems to be heaven. There they see all of their deceased loved ones and that is when the story gets weird. The illustration are almost disturbing but really great at the same time. From this experience, Anna and her father finally feel at peace and go back home. I do not think I would put this in my classroom but I definitely would have this at home for my kids.

A fascinating beauty for the eyes to wander, question and reconsider life. It's more than just a child searching for answers-- it's exemplary of how we all search for answers when something tragic happens that is beyond the edge of our understanding. We want to break from what makes sense and what we know and do something different; this book does exactly that.

I received a copy to review.

The book Anna's Heaven is a gorgeously illustrated book with a story that is just as lovely. Although marketed as a Children's book I think this book could find an audience in anyone who is going through loss and asking the tough questions about what happens next.