The Goodbye Boat

Rating:
Summary: The Goodbye Boat
Review: by SMFran [e-mail]

In a 28-page color picture book titled The Goodbye Boat, Mary Joslin, writer, and Claire St. Louis Little, color illustrator, (Grand Rapids Mich., Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999, hard cover) present a message about dying, a message in pictures and words where the emotions of grieving find hope in a boat sent out to sea. The pain and sadness of saying "goodbye" find a resurrection motif in the boat sailing out of sight and into a new place. Appropriate and meaningful for all ages, the book holds special appeal for children and those guiding children through the death experience of a grandparent or someone close. I read the book to the young grandchildren of my sister after her death. These children asked me to reread the book to them several times, and each time they had new questions for me. This book offered me a wondeful way to say how Grandma had gone away on the sea of eternity.

Rating:
Summary: Magical & heart warming!
Review: Saying goodbye to someone you love is always hard. Saying goodbye when someone you love dies is perhaps the hardest thing of all.

I remember those days when I left for boarding school or to emigrate to America. I was the one leaving in those days. I was on a Goodbye Boat. Later, I stood & watched others leave for faraway places or, as is inevitable, leaving life.

Few words, rich pictures, extra-ordinarily rich pictures & a lot to think about!

For every family raising conscious children - when grandparents & pets & friends die & go away.

A simple, passionately illustrated meditation of life & death & life.