The brown-haired, light-skinned narrator and their parents are a tightknit family. With their mom, the protagonist bakes, draws, and builds cardboard houses; with their dad, they go on walks, make up stories, and roughhouse. They love their time with each parent, but when all three are together, things don’t always go as smoothly. Mom and Dad often argue, make up with the help of their child, and return to normal until they inevitably argue again. This vicious cycle culminates with the narrator’s father leaving their home permanently to live elsewhere. The main character is understandably distraught, asking, “Why aren’t we happy together instead of having those sad feelings apart?” With a helpful piece of advice from their mother, they learn to embrace their separate lives with each parent and their respective partners, and to accept the changing, less conventional shape of their family. Here, Nikolova tackles a topic more common in real life than in children’s literature. Her writing is somewhat stilted, and occasional time skips may require assistance for young readers to fill in the gaps. Popova’s illustrations almost always portray the child with one parent at a time; when the father leaves, she removes all color from the otherwise visually vivid story as the main character struggles with their sadness.
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English (US) ·