Blog Tour & Giveaway for Some Days by Maria Wernicke Illustrated by Lawrence Schimel

My Review:

Some Days begins quietly with a mother and daughter sitting a kitchen table after finishing a meal.  The palette of gray, black, and white and the mother’s and girl’s forlorn expressions convey a mood of sadness and despair.  But when you turn the page, a glimmer of normalcy emerges.  The girl is petting her dog and a patch of red appears in the mother’s laundry basket.  The girl utters 6 words.

The girl continues sharing that through this passageway, she is reunited with a loved one (possibly her father).  With him, she feels safe, free from danger, and even knows how to swim.

After the end of the story, the mother tells the daughter that while we might not always see it, never stop looking for the passageway.  They walk out together arm in arm with the little girl wearing the hat of her loved one.

Some Days is a tender and gentle story of heart, hurt, but most importantly hope.  I must admit that the page spread of the girl hugging the man really tugged at my heart.  After my husband and I said goodbye to our first beagle, Beaglie, we both remarked that the house was so cold without him.  I can empathize with the girl for feeling cold in her loss.  Wernicke’s illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and show not only the mother’s and daughter’s grief but also their love for each other.  Her choice of using red sparingly conveys to me that red means love. In translating to English from Spanish, Schimel chooses words carefully to allow the illustrations to deliver the story’s message.  Losing a loved one is extremely difficult no matter one’s age.  Some Days reminds us that we can still look for that person in our daily lives.

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