from Lilly Looking, cut paper collage
and gouache
Lilly Looking is the story of a young girl's trying to understand – all
by herself - her experience of her older brother’s death when she was very young. In
each year-spread we hear Lilly's 13-year-old, "big girl," retrospective voice narrating
an illustration of a younger Lilly as if looking through a family album. We also hear, quietly
in italics, the inner thoughts of the younger Lilly in the picture. She tells us, “All
my life, I’ve kept him in a corner of my mind,” evincing the anxiety and sorrow
caused when a family does not grieve together. Ultimately Lilly’s understanding and healing
take place when she discovers, slowly, through examples of memorial found in life itself – old
portraits in the museum, the names at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, etc. - that if
we remember loved ones who die that they can “live forever.” The “fine art” illustrations
are made with cut-paper collage and gouache. This wonderful world offers each of us, adults
and children alike, gifts as well as losses; learning how to integrate mourning and healing
into life’s fabric is essential to our well-being. I have been told by therapists, educators,
and rabbis that Lilly Looking would be useful to them in their grief therapy work,
especially with children and young adults who, for some strange and mistaken reason, are often “protected” from
the closure that comes from funerals, memorials, and other social and spiritual rituals, or
even from simple family discussions. I suspect that, although not the formulaic age market
for a picture book, directing marketing to educators, librarians, and parents of young adults
and “tweens” would prove successful; there exist few accessible or attractive resources
about death, healing, and “survivor guilt,” and a picture book might break down
some barriers to reluctant young people, whether they are survivors themselves or simply young
readers whose horizons might be widened by learning about others’ experiences.
