Do You Remember?

The boy and his mother lie, head to head in the darkened room. Turn by turn, they ask, Do You Remember? Maybe the picnic, when the boy returned from exploring with something in his hands? Then again, the birthday bike, the surprise, from which the boy fell? Or the time that the rain came ‘down so hard that the roof‘ leaked? Thereafter the ‘power went out‘? What about ‘the smell of Grandpa’s old oil lamp‘?

Yet now? It seems that they have left their home behind. In fact, they’ve packed everything up and driven ‘down the motorway/ further than [they’d] every been‘ until they ‘were lost’.

However, it seems they’ve arrived, yet where? We gaze with them across dense, dark toned pages, wondering what the pair have left and what might lie ahead. Could this be the start of new memories?

The feelings are intimate and personal so that we can feel the hurt and loss, but then the heads together shows a solidarity and kinship. Then again, the rhythm, between mother and child, blossoms into something new, when the boy leaves the bed, and in three frames, opens the window to the light. Might they be starting again?

Bookwagon is moved by Do You Remember? This is a most beautiful, thoughtful, provocative and poignant picture book that we recommend for reading together, thinking about, talking over and cherishing.