Description

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A beautiful, candid picture book for children to understand what happens when a loved one begins suffering from dementia, and how best to care for them.

A 2022 Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book 
A Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature
A USBBY Outstanding International Book of 2022
A Bank Street College of Education Best Book of 2022
A 2021 Penn Graduate School of Education Best Book for Young Readers
Gerontological Society of America Book Award for Best Children’s Literature on Aging of 2022, Honorable Mention

Stump loves being with his grandparents. His days with them are filled with flowers, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, and so much love! But one day, Stump's grandfather starts to be forgetful, losing his words, which the illustrations how as falling away from him. Stump tries his best to keep his grandfather’s lost words safe, by collecting them in a special box. But Grandpa seems to forget more and more every day, and before long, Stump and Grandma realize that they must find new ways to connect with Grandpa, to maintain their bond of love and show him that he's not alone.

This poignant, tender picture book depicts the warmth of the relationship between grandchild and grandparents, as well as the struggle of coping with a loved one's dementia with honesty and sensitivity. Following the story, there is an afterword to the adult reader about dementia and recollection, written by the head of the Danish Center for Reminiscence, which provides some practical tips, such as those depicted in the story (familiar smells, sharing items from the past), for establishing a meaningful way of being together when caring for a relative with dementia.

About the Author

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Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard was born in Aarhaus, Denmark in 1972. She graduated from the Danish School of Design's illustration program in 2002 and studied at Akademia Sztuk Pieknich in Kraków, Poland. She has received a number of working grants and awards from the Danish Arts Foundation, including the Illustration Award 2015, and was nominated for the 2020 Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize for her illustration of Out of the Blue. She currently works and lives with her family in Bornholm, an island in the Baltic Sea.