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Kramer, Jackie Azúa

The Boy and the Gorilla

48 pp. | Candlewick | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-0-7636-9832-4 $16.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Cindy Derby. A gorilla approaches a young boy after the death of the boy's mother ("Your mother's garden is beautiful. May I help?") and stays with him as the boy begins to process what happened and work through his grief. Sometimes the gorilla answers direct questions ("Where did Mom go?" "No one knows for sure"); at other moments, it simply provides affirmation ("Sometimes I want to be alone." "That's all right. Everyone needs quiet time"). Gorgeous collage illustrations, splotchy and watery almost as if tear-stained, follow the boy and gorilla from garden to beach to playground to classroom to treetop as the conversation continues, always (after the first introduction) initiated by the boy. As time passes and with the gorilla's help and gentle encouragement, the boy approaches his father--who has been present in the background, but silent and separate--and as the two begin to talk about their mutual grief and to comfort each other, the gorilla departs. Kramer's text is understated and powerful, and Derby's art, whether depicting a glorious seascape or a mundane school-bus interior, is invested with emotion. The gorilla--enormous in comparison to its surroundings, standing out on each spread in deep colors of purple, blue, and gray--is both a reassuring presence and a symbol of the immensity of the boy's grief. [See the similarly themed Bear Island, reviewed on page 53.]
Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

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