I’m not sure if the 2022 picture book My Brother is Away is great, but is heartbreaking, and I recommend it.
After the story, there’s an author’s note. It explains that when author Sara Greenwood was young (first grade), her brother was arrested and sent to prison. He was away for several years, and this experience –the arrest, the absence, the difficulty explaining things–shaped her childhood. I thank her for her honesty, but the book rings so strongly with personal pain, I would have been surprised if there hadn’t been personal experience somewhere in its creation.
The book’s story is simple. A girl narrates her experiences, and that story starts with “My brother doesn’t live here. He’s far away.” It then goes on to evoke her experience of trying to make sense with him being away–how different it is, how unbalancing. Her memories of her times with her brother haunt her, and it is a long time before they visit. When they do, she wonders if her brother will remember her, if he’ll recognize her, if they will still have a connection. He does, and they do, and the other people visiting family at the prison do too.
All of Luisa Uribe’s illustration do a find job of capturing the distance–the physical and emotional space that fills this family’s life.
