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PICTURE BOOKS
Birkjær, Betina

Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost

40 pp. | Enchanted Lion | December, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-59270-373-9 $17.95
(2) K-3 Translated by Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov. Illustrated by Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard. Stump and her grandfather are close, sharing hours of jigsaw puzzles and tending his hundred-plus flowers. Grandpa has a sharp memory, remembering the Latin names for all his beloved plants, until one day he doesn't. Soon, he puts out crystal glasses instead of coffee cups and can't make sense of a favorite puzzle. The young narrator is patient and loving. As Grandpa loses words, Stump collects them in a box. When Grandpa wanders out in the snow wearing bedroom slippers, Stump and her grandmother bring him home and warm him up with coffee. Stump, so nicknamed for her grandfather's childhood pet rabbit, recognizes that what he needs is something tangible, so she presents him with a new rabbit. The first-person account is clear and unadorned. This down-to-earth narration, combined with the dreamy quality of Kjærgaard's paintings, successfully conveys the poignancy of Grandpa's progressing dementia and Stump's deep love for him. The artist uses soft edges, layers of watercolor, and a gentle pastel palette, which flattens to shades of gray and blue as winter arrives and Grandpa's memory fails. The final spread, in which he happily holds his rabbit, revives some of the bright colors and flowers from the opening pages, as Stump's gift restores, for at least a moment, some of Grandpa's former self. A detailed, thoughtful afterword about dementia and memory loss adds a useful layer to this emotional story.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

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