Be it in Grimm’s Fairy Tales or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, death has always played a role in children’s literature. But in recent years authors have started confronting the subject more frankly. Michael Rosen’s Sad Book (2004), in which he chronicles his grief at the death of his teenage son, is now widely recommended by grief counsellors, and this highly affecting debut novel by Welsh author Olivia Wakeford is likely to win similar approval. The story is narrated by ten-year-old Rhys, and in the opening chapter we meet him in a hospital room, paying what will be a final visit to his dying mother. “She looks small and not Mam-like. White sheets come to her chin, and her hair, which is usually bright red and spiky like mine, is flat and stuck to her forehead.”
Later that day, Rhys’s estranged father tells him that his mother has died. “I screw my eyes flat, press my head against my knees and swallow the ball of fire in my throat. I can’t cry in front of Dad. He’ll try to make me feel better, but he never makes me feel better about anything.”
The novel is aimed at readers as young as nine, for some of whom this might feel quite weighty. But Wakeford skilfully develops this story of loss into a lyrical adventure involving Rhys and Worthington, “a black Labrador with conker eyes and ears like triangles of velvet.” No one else can see Worthington – but to Rhys, who first spotted him hiding under his mother’s hospital bed, there’s no doubt that he is real. “Apart from being picky about food, Worthington is perfect. He’s a good listener and, because I’ve told him about what happened, it’s a lot easier to talk to him about Mam. I think it’s because he knows what it’s like to miss someone since he’s probably missing his owner.”
When Rhys moves to London to live with his father, Worthington follows. Rhys knows that his father does not like dogs, so initially he keeps his pet a secret. But when he later talks about Worthington to children at his new school, he’s called a liar. And when Worthington subsequently vanishes, Rhys himself starts to have doubts: “I remember the warmth I felt in my chest at the sight of him. The kisses he gave me. The way he spun in a circle when he was excited. He was real, wasn’t he?”
Grief is a difficult theme for children’s novelists, who need to help readers explore the subject of bereavement without putting off those who have never experienced it. Wakeford strikes a fine balance, pulling off a magical adventure, while observing Rhys’s circumstances with poignant acuity. But at its heart this is not so much a book about grief as a testament to the perennial power of a child’s imagination – a subject that will find wide appeal.