When Alma and Diego celebrate the Day of the Dead, they feel heavy with sadness and buoyant with joy.
Author: Sanna Pelliccioni, Miami Snellman, Kiti Szalai
Finnish original: Muistan sinua rakkaudella
Publisher: Teos, 2020
Genre: illustrated children’s fiction
Number of pages: 40 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
Rights sold: Estonia, Toledo
When Alma’s beloved grandmother dies, the world becomes a quiet place. Her mother sits at the window, looking out. Her father’s days weigh on his shoulders as he goes to the store, cooks a meal.
One day Alma’s classmate Diego approaches her at recess and says that, like her, he misses his abuelo – his grandpa, who died in the spring. Soon Diego and his family invite Alma and her parents to a big party where they remember the dead.
Celebrating the Mexican Día de Muertos, Alma and her family experience a new way to grieve and remember loved ones who have died in this story, joyful in its sadness and sensitively illustrated by Sanna Pelliccioni.
“As they sit around the table they tell all the best stories of Alma’s grandma and Diego’s abuelo. Memories flutter through the room, climb up the wallpaper, peep out from between the curtains.”
“The book offers another, beautiful way to face death. Death does not have to create a dark and gloomy cloud that covers all, but it can be faced with joy. […] The book is beautiful with its dark shades, a bit mystical, especially warm. The crayon illustrations take the reader to a journey form one culture to another.”
– Sivukukkasia blog
Also available:
Matias and Everything that Was Far Away (2021)
We Had to Leave (2019)
About the author:
Sanna Pelliccioni