My Brother Is Away - Hardcover

Greenwood, Sara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593127161 ISBN 13: 9780593127162

Publisher: Random House Studio, 2022

Synopsis

In this moving picture book, a young girl reflects on the emotions and challenges of growing up with a brother who is incarcerated. This touching story is filled with vivid illustrations and is based on the author’s childhood experiences.

An NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book • NPR Best Book of the Year • A Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book

With her older brother in prison, a young girl copes with the confusing feelings his absence creates. At times she remembers the way her brother would carry her on his shoulders or how he would make up stories to tell her at bedtime. Other times she feels angry and wants to fly so far away that she can forget what happened.

When her Mama and Daddy take her on the 500-mile journey to visit him, a trip she knows not all families are able to make, the girl is excited but also nervous. But the nerves turn to joy when she sees him—everything is different, but everything is the same too. Her brother is not home, but his love hasn’t changed.  

With words that are spare, gentle, and reassuring, this picture book will help young readers with similar stories feel less alone and give other readers a window into the struggles some children face.

About this title

About the Author

Caroline Starr Rose, writing as Sara Greenwood, hopes her stories help children feel seen and heard. She wants them to know their emotions count and their experiences matter. She is a former teacher who lives with her family in New Mexico.

Luisa Uribe is the illustrator of Areli is a Dreamer, which has received two starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. She was awarded the Society of Illustrators Dilys Evans Founder's Award for The Vast Wonder of the World by Melina Mangal. She also illustrated Your Name Is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, describing her work as "dynamic." She lives in Bogotá, Colombia, with her partner and two cats.

Reviews

K-Gr 3—A necessary picture book that will tug at heartstrings, inspire empathy, and fill an important gap in children's literature. A child details the wonderful relationship she has with her brother, who plays with her, tells her stories, and flies kites with her. These lyrical passages alternate with spare statements revealing that her older brother is far away because he's in prison. Greenwood's narrative expertly shifts tones as the girl toggles between past and present, every line filled with nuance and heartache. The protagonist has to deal with awkward and accusatory conversations with classmates, the stark emptiness of his room, and her own anger at what he did. However, he continues to be her brother, and this picture book emphasizes the humanity of those who are incarcerated and their families. When the family visits the brother, the girl is initially nervous and unsure, but is soon reunited in a deeply felt reconciliation. Uribe's art is the perfect complement—the joyous and fanciful scenes featuring the siblings in the past are filled with sweeping landscapes and small acts of tenderness. These are adeptly balanced with matter-of-fact spreads set in the present. The brother's face is always angled so that readers never see him fully until their first embrace. The narrator appears to be white. The families visiting their relatives in prison are of different races. VERDICT A strong companion to Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson's Milo Imagines the World, this quiet, powerful book belongs in every collection serving children.—Shelley M. Diaz

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Studio
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593127161
• ISBN 13: 9780593127162
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Uribe Luisa
• Number of pages: 40