Leaving Home: Clare's Goodbye by Libby Gleeson

Come on, Clare," said Rosie. "It's time to say goodbye to everything."

Jacob grabbed Rosie's hand. "We have to say goodbye to the tree house."

It's been a good house, a happy house for the children.

On moving day the older ones try to keep little Clare busy, organizing last visits to their favorite places, beginning with the tree house.

Jacob climbs part-way up the ladder, but then stops to rest his cheek against the tree's bark. Rosie's suggestions to visit Clare's snail nest and Jakob's suggestion to visit the grave of their bunny Blossom only make Clare sadder. Rosie suggests writing their names in their now empty sandbox, but Rosie just looks away quietly.

As the rooms slowly become empty of their things, Rosie and Jakob watch. It's not their home anymore. But where is Clare? They look upstairs in the bedroom.

In the room there was only Clare, and she was dancing.

Everyone deals with loss in different ways, and in Libby Gleeson's Clare's Goodbye (Little Hare Books, 2018) little Clare finds her own way. Moving is always hard for children, especially when it means leaving the only home you've known, and Gleeson's sensitive story of what is left behind reminds youngsters that sad feelings can be expressed in many ways. Artist Anna Pignataro's soft and expressive illustrations don't sugarcoat the emotions of a farewell to a beloved house and offer a lesson in empathy for children who have never known a move. Says School Library Journal, "Impressionistic illustrations dominated by charcoal and pencil..., watercolors and collage create the quiet mood. Heavy use of charcoal shading around the children, like an aura of sadness, visually express the real difficulty children have learning to say goodbye."