Shadow By Lucy Christopher

Firstly the illustrations could be a book on their own, they really draw you in. The book starts quite dark at the beginning and turns into a beautifully colourful book. Matthew said they look like dreams or nightmares, especially the Forrest pages with hands for branches.

The story itself is quite a lot. Matthew read it very differently to how Molly saw it, and I read it different again. It’s good as it then has a lot of questions and topics to discuss and when we read it again, there was more understanding.
From Matthews point of view, he saw it as a little girl moved into a new house and didn’t have many friends. She doesn’t know the house very well and finds a shadow, which she thought might of been monsters. The shadow takes her to a really dark place and her mum finds her and brings the light. The little girl then is happy because of her mum is there she is safe, and she goes onto make new friends. She leaves her scarf with the darkness if she ever feels sad and scared again, she can go back there.

Molly see it as beautiful pages of enchanting illustrations and she pointed out things on the page. She said when the page was really black “it’s fine, she can just turn on the light and be happy again” Molly is almost three and has a good understanding of most things, except emotions. She is figuring all them out at the moment and expressing how to get feelings or points across, so this book could be quite helpful to her when she is older.

Overall we enjoyed the book and there is a lot to take away from it. I would recommend the reading age to be about 6/7 years + as I don’t thing younger readers would understand fully.

These are the type of books /stories we need in the world. Thank you for tackling such subjects with children.

Unusual illustrations for some not for us as we chose these types of books over all the glossy bright colours more ‘standard’ children’s books.

All ages can take from this story perhaps different meanings. Lots of younger children wouldn’t know what depression is but can see from this that love is real even if mummy isn’t up to herself on certain days, older children may understand bit more of depression and that like some refer to as a black dog (shadow) that grows and shrinks. My 4yr old thought the shadow was the child’s imagery friend. My 11yr old knew it was bit more than that. My 13 yr old autistic picked up from the images that it’s but sad but everything will be ok because the mum is mum. Mum is safe and loving and caring. My 14yr old thought very beautifully done. My 17yr old autistic daughter said she found it bit dark and not so sure for very young children with the images looks a bit scary.

As a family we think it’s very nicely done.

Really thought provoking story with beautiful illustrations. I think as an adult reading the story I read it very differently to my 8 year old who took from it that the little girl was scared in her new home. It’s hinted from the illustrations that the mother is possibly grieving/and or depressed so it gave us lots of thing to notice and look out for.

The first time I read Shadow aloud to my 9, 5 and almost 2 year old I could tell there was going to be lots of questions as the story itself is quite intense and can definitely be interpreted differently by children of different ages.

My 2 year old was very interested in the pictures, they are particularly enchanting and really draw you in. They do seem to tell a story by themselves, and we have sat and looked over them without actually reading the words and she has seemed to really enjoy just taking them in.

My 5 year old was a little worried at first that it was going to be a scary book at the mention of monsters under the bed, but as we read on I could see he was really trying to make sense of it. He had the most questions of all but I have to admit I do love that as when we read it a second and third time I can see that he was understanding it differently since we'd talked through his questions.

I have to say though I think it was my 9 year old that enjoyed this book the most and he has read it by himself quite a few times. He likes the idea of her shadow being her friend and helping her through the more difficult times. I think this book really opens up the reality that not all children have it as good as they do, that there are many who have to cope with loneliness and the coping mechanism used in this book is a great way of showing it's ok and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We really enjoyed it and the story stays with you in a way that all important, meaningful books do :-)

This is a lovely hard back edition. The illustrations are lovely throughout, they start off quite dark and become lighter and brighter towards the end - really fitting with the story. I found the story quite sad in the first half but it's brighter at the end and full of hope. I think I'd recommend for ages 6+.