Where to start! This is 79 pages of glorious writing. Joely's mum is very ill, and in the months before her death we get to know Joely very well - her hidden fears, her secrets, her relationship with small brother Errol, her closeness to her gran. She is obsessed, first with fairies and then with angels, and the more questions she asks, the more confused she becomes. When she tries to turn herself into an angel in order to help her mum (by conquering her fears of a railway bridge), she falls and is caught miraculously - by angels or by something more prosaic? She survives, but mum doesn't : 'The worst thing she could imagine had happened. There was nothing she could do to prevent it. Nothing could hurt her now.' Joely's childhood imagination comes to an end with her mum's death. This is not a happy-ending story, although we do see a picture of crocuses inset in a butterfly shape, planted by Gran and Joely - a symbol that some wings can't get broken. Showing a mixed race family, the soft black and white illustrations add even more sensitivity to a poignant and beautiful text.