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Sharing something beautiful which means a great deal to you can be an awkward, even embarrassing thing to do. It can feel like going out on a limb. You take the risk of appearing sentimental and perhaps even slightly loopy.

Quite why this should be the case, I don’t know. After all, in trying to offer a special moment or experience, all the giver wants is for you to feel something of the same joy, calm, delight and warmth. But it’s a vulnerable moment, full of potential for dreams to be trampled on.

As a parent I’ve sometimes found myself in the situation where, just for a moment , I want my kids to take me seriously , to meet me as a friend and to fall in love with what I’ve fallen in love with. Don’t get me wrong, of course I want them to have their own opinions and discover their own places and times of magic. But I also want to gift them moments of golden glow inside them, serve up nuggets of warmth that will stay with them always, through bad times and good when remembering times and places that are somehow beautiful.

It happens a lot with books of course – I’ll start books I loved as a child with bated breath: What will the kids make of them? Sometimes it happens with music, and also locations with views or spaces that take my breath away or inspire excitement or awe.

And so when I opened When Dad Showed Me the Universe written by Ulf Stark, illustrated by Eva Eriksson and translated by Julia Marshall I knew the story would speak to me.

A father decides that his child is old enough to be shown the universe, and takes him on a night-time walk through the town and out into an open space far from street lights where they can watch the stars together and marvel in the sparkle and space and silence. But what does the child make of all this?

The bright intensity of beauty is made bearable with bucket loads of dead pan humour. An extra pair of socks is needed because – it turns out – the universe is pretty cold (‘“Minus 263 degrees,” Dad said‘). The universe turns out to be fairly easy to find; with echoes of Neverland “the way there was straight ahead and then to the left.” And when they finally arrive at the destination picked out by Dad, “I had a feeling I’d been here before, that this was the place where people walked their dogs.”

Indeed, there is a final twist to the story which brings everyone back from interstellar dreams to everyday reality with quite a bump, brilliantly adding a layer of laughter to a moment of intimacy and affection; Father and child do get to create a special shared memory that will stay with them all their lives, but it may not be quite that which the Dad had anticipated!

Pitch-perfect words deserve exceptional illustrations, and Eva Eriksson’s soft and dreamy pencil work only enriches Stark’s text. Muted tones predominate, with the exception of an intense blue for the night time sky, giving those spreads extra impact. The story is told as a first person narrative – the child retelling the entire experience, and the illustrations also emphasise the child’s view of the world; (s)he is often looking in a different direction to his/her father, picking up on other things of interest, whether that’s the liquorice on sale in the shop or the abandoned trike in the park, I couldn’t help smiling broadly at the different facial expressions in father and child when first they gaze at the vastness of the stars above them.

[I think it is worth noting that although some may assume the child is a boy, the text does not assert this. Indeed, given the first person narrative, there’s no need for gendered pronouns when referring to the child, who could in fact be a girl. This possibility is one of the great things about this story and translation.]

When Dad Showed Me the Universe is a very clever, moving and extremely funny book about parental love. In fact, in sharing it with you here on the blog, I feel a little like the father in this beautiful book. I so want you too to gasp in delight, smile brightly and feel that sense of magic settling on you when you read this. I can’t give you starlight, but I can wholeheartedly recommend you find a copy of When Dad Showed Me the Universe without delay.

The hilarity in When Dad Showed Me the Universe has ensured that it is a book my kids have wanted to share multiple times. But already after the first reading they could see my thinking: Were they going to get to see the universe too?

First I prepared…

A perfect universe-gazing pack

This pack was left in the garden shed whilst I kept an eye on the weather forecast for a few days, looking out for a clear night. When one came along, I was all ready to go into slightly crazy mode and tell my kids that even though they had their pyjamas on, we were going into the garden in the dark.

I didn’t take many photos as the idea was to disconnect from all the buzz we normally have going on in our lives, and just to relax watching the stars twinkling.

We were super snug and spent about 40 minutes just gazing, sometimes chatting, sometimes just being quiet.

I’m no good at night-time photography (see above). What we saw wasn’t quite like this…

Photo: Scott Wylie on Fiickr Creative Commons

…but we did all feel a sense of awe and peace in a way that took me by surprise.

We didn’t listen to any music whilst we were outside, but here is a marvellously celestial playlist:

You might also like to take a look at this informative list of music (both classical and pop) inspired by astronomy, written by Andrew Franknoi.

Other activities which could go well with reading When Dad Showed Me the Universe include:

What’s your happiest memory from going somewhere special with a parent or a child?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been struck by the number of Swedish books for children I’ve found in translation which are about death. Whilst researching my post about Swedish picture books in translation I came across two books that I felt were so very lovely I had to give them their own post.

Both written by Ulf Nilsson – All the dear little animals (illustrated by Eva Eriksson) and Goodbye Mr Muffin (illustrated by Anna-Clara Tidholm) are two gentle and powerful picture books about a subject sometimes taboo for children, death.

All the dear little animals is a marvellous, sensitive, funny, thoughtful book. A group of young children, bored one day, set up their own company, Funerals Ltd, to bury any and all the dead animals they can find. It starts with a bee they find in the windowsill, but before long they’ve got a dead hamster called Harold from a neighbour, three fish from a bag in the fridge, a squashed hedgehog from the road and more.

Reading All the dear little animals

All the animals are laid to rest with great care and kindness. One of the children, who is scared of touching the dead animals, finds his forte is writing hymns for them, whilst they all enjoy making crosses, painting gravestones and planting flowers. Over the course of the day they create a beautiful cemetery in their secret clearing at the bottom of the secret path.

As the day draws to a close and they are heading home, they witness death actually taking place – a bird flies into a window and with a flutter and a shudder dies at their feet. The game suddenly takes on a whole new meaning, and as they give the blackbird their most beautiful send off “sadness lay like a black quilt over the clearing“.

Photo: Tim Green aka atoach

I cannot recommend this book enough. Yes, it is about death, but it is so full of kindness, thoughtfulness and humour that the topic isn’t frightening or disturbing. Most picture books I’ve read about death I probably wouldn’t introduce to kids unless they were in the process of grieving (cf this round up on death themed picture books I

Eva Eriksson See more illustrations here (How do you rotate them?)

Hmm...well, I'm a woman of many faces. A daughter, sister, friend, author, and most importantly, a wife and mommy.

I have loved to read my whole life but never once considered becoming a writer until about five years ago. I got laid off from a job I'd had for about ten years. One day I was watching Oprah and she had an author, Po Bronson, on the show. He had written a book called, What Should I Do With My Life? A few of the people interviewed for the book were on the show and they had given up six figure jobs to pursue their dreams. They looked SO happy. I drove straight to the mall and bought the book. I'm pretty sure I read the whole thing that night. The book was excellent, and the stories were so inspirational, but when I turned to put the book on my nightstand, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. I guess I had expected to get to page 100 of the book and it would say, STEPHANIE HALE, YOU WOULD BE VERY HAPPY WORKING AS AN ONION FARMER! Which is totally ridiculous, because as anyone who knows me would tell you, I dispise onions. And I don't even know if there are specific farmers just for onions. I was jealous of the people in the stories. I didn't think that I would ever feel happy about WORK. I tried desperately to think of things I loved. My husband, my son, pizza, Coca-Cola, expensive makeup, but none of these things seemed to translate into a clear career path.

Tired and depressed, I reached over to switch off my bedside lamp only to knock over the ever-present tower of books on my table. Then it hit me.

BOOKS. I LOVE BOOKS. I LOVE TOUCHING THEM, SMELLING THEM, HOLDING THEM, and READING THEM. Why couldn't I write a book?

And that was it. The next day I started writing an adult chick-lit called The Perfect Man, I know, original title, right? It got some requests and some nice rejections. After that, and having a second baby, I started what I thought was a young adult but was probably a middle-grade called Living Doll. It has a cute premise and someday I might be able to revise it. While I was shopping LIVING DOLL around, I started Revenge of the Homecoming Queen.

I knew immediately that this book was different from my first two books. It poured out of me pretty quickly. I was getting some very positive requests on LD and felt I was very close to getting an agent, but not my dream agent.

So I did what any impulsive writer does and started querying my dream agents with the Revenge premise. All of them wanted to see it, including Queen Bee Agent, who I had my heart set on getting to represent me.

Okay, long story short. Queen Bee loved my story but wanted to see it fleshed out more and wanted to see it again if I chose to do this. I took one month and completely revised the book and added 20k. I resent to Queen Bee and waited. Queen Bee loved my additions, signed me, and sold my book very shortly thereafter. YEAH!

Getting a book published has been just as amazing as I always dreamed it would be. It is amazing to love what you do and get paid for it. I just hope that I can keep doing this forever.

My second book, Twisted Sisters, comes out on April 1st. Aspen and her Comfort High peeps go to college in this one. Aspen has another mystery to solve while trying to fit in with her new sorority sisters.

I have lots of ideas for new mysteries for Aspen, as well as new characters, that are just waiting to be written. It sounds so cheesy, but now I know, dreams really do come true. Don't ever give up on your dream!

xo,

Steph

http://www.stephaniehale.com/

Revenge of the Homecoming Queen, OUT NOW!