Flamingo Dream

From Publishers Weekly Told in the ingenuous voice of a girl who loses her father to cancer, this awkward story begins with a meandering account of a trip the youngster and her dad take to his childhood home in Florida. The girl reports a somewhat inane conversation about flamingos, who "wouldn't really want to fly away. Flamingos know that Florida is the best place to be in winter." The tale takes a poignant turn when her father goes "to the hospital for therapy" offering the first hint of his illness and she "held a cold cloth on his forehead afterward because he felt so bad. I did everything for him that Mamma did when we were at home." Back at home, the girl and her parents talk about the cancer; her mother says the father will die. When her father's friends visit after his death, each brings a plastic pink flamingo, and the girl and her mother eventually sprinkle his ashes around them. The flamingos disappear in a blizzard and the girl concludes that they went "back to Florida for the winter. And they took Daddy with them." Felstead's (Big Wolf and Little Wolf) collage art, befitting the narrative voice, mimics a child's crayon drawings. Despite the narrator's candid, affecting reactions, readers may find the storytelling more puzzling than comforting. Ages 5-up. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3-This aesthetically appealing and emotionally affecting title provides a child's-eye view of the death of a parent from cancer. The collages are designed to look like a scrapbook of a girl's last year with her father; bits of maps, flowers, ticket stubs, feathers, and dictionary pages are layered with textured papers and paint. The characters are crayon cutouts. Their time together includes a trip to Florida to visit the father's birthplace and favorite childhood haunts. This is where the flamingos figure in, and each resurfacing becomes a vibrant, visual symbol of a cherished relationship. They elicit, in turn, joy, anger, tears, a sense of well being. Napoli's simple and straightforward language describes what dying looks like to a young person and depicts the stages of grief in an accessible and age-appropriate manner. The changes in the father's body are compared to the metamorphosis of autumnal leaves. Those wishing to probe spiritual matters would need to add their own thoughts or look elsewhere. As a script and a story for a subject that many find difficult to broach with children, this book succeeds beautifully. The final scene, with the mother and daughter working on the "Year Book" together, may well inspire readers to celebrate a loved one in a similar manner.