Sue Lawrence’s 2012 picture book Montana’s Memory Day is lovely, strange, and nearly necessary for some readers.
The subtitle signals why. This “a nature-themed foster/adoption story.” The book features Montana, telling the honest and austere story of his path through the foster care system–briefly sketched–and his making his home with “New Mom,” Montana and New Mom walk through nature together, following tracks in the snow (coyote, not wolf), spotting birds (an American dipper, a magpie), and picking up sticks, which they carve together.
Erika Wilson’s illustrations largely work with a winter pallet–lots of white, gray, and brown–and communicate the feeling of open skies and quiet.
And this is a quiet book. Montana is, as he says, “a thinker and a rememberer,” and changing homes–and families–as he’s so often done has clearly driven him inward. Cooking and carving with New Mom helps Montana feel at home, and her acceptance makes this, as Montana says, the “best Memory Day” ever.
The book’s quietness may not snag all children’s attention…but anyone in the foster system or who is in a difficult family setting will find this book helpful, even, as noted above, necessary.
