Translated from the French, this beautiful picture book is a 'tour de force' in both text and illustration. The little boy's mum has just died, and he is angry and frustrated and can't believe that she has gone off and left him. Dad won't know how to make his morning toast just right; in fact, he won't know how to do anything. The boy is very forthright in his thoughts: 'I knew she hadn't 'gone', she was dead and I would never see her again, that they were going to put her in a box and then in the ground, where she would turn into dust.' Dad looks like 'a flannel, all crumpled and wet,' and the boy hates to see him cry. He desperately wants to keep his mum's smell in the house, but when he closes the windows, it gets very hot. She is fast disappearing from him, and when he falls in the garden and hurts his leg, he hears her voice, and from then on, he thinks that he will hear it again when he sees the blood - he even scratches the scab so the blood returns. When grandma turns up, the little boy worries that he now has two sad adults to look after, but it is grandma who is able to help him understand that his mother will always be in his heart, whether or not he can hear or smell her. Now he can run and feel his heart beating and know his mum is there. Eventually, the scab heals, and he has only the scar to remind him. But he has dad, who is learning how to make toast properly, and he begins to understand that he and dad will get through this terrible grief. The pictures are full of red, the red of anger, and the red of blood. Vast open spaces, sometimes with tiny black toys scattered about, have only one or two pictures in them, but the pictures are redolent of what is going on in the boy's mind. This is not an easy read. This adult found it heart-rending; but a child who is angry and sad and worried all at the same time, could well find it of major use in his or her life - and it is very beautiful.