Childhood friendship and farewells

In May, we said goodbye to our dearly loved family cat. Maggie was a sweet, gentle ball of fluff that gave us many years of joy. Her passing came as a shock to our children, and opened up a well of new emotions, particularly in my eight-year-old son. He was Maggie’s best friend, and her loss introduced acute grief to him for the very first time.

In those early days, we moved through this sorrow with many tears and long hugs. As the weeks have progressed, the sharp edges of his grief have been sanded down. Now, it manifests more in wistful sighs at her favourite perch, and bittersweet delight that the rose we planted in her honour is about to bloom. “I just wish she could have stayed a little longer,” he said to me as we walked back in from the garden. It’s in this delicate space of gratitude and ache that Tim Fischer’s Under The Blanket Sky unfurls.

Fischer’s debut children’s book tells the story of a young, bespeckled boy who befriends a mysterious and fluffy creature in his backyard. The boy and his friend spend all summer together, lounging in dappled sunlight, scribbling on sidewalks and finding refuge in puddles of luminescent water and cool garages. Fischer’s renderings of a childhood summer are rich and expansive: the leaves seem translucent, the grass sways, the backgrounds blur into hazy bokeh.

When the boy’s feathery companion announces it’s time for him to go, both young and adult readers will experience a swell of melancholy as they part. Fischer’s beautiful prose and enchanting illustrations allow space for all of us to sit with our yearning for the creatures, people and seasons we only wish could have stayed a little longer.