Me and Mrs Moon
Me and Mrs Moon is a story of children coping with discovery that their best friend and carer Mrs Moon is developing with dementia.
Me and Mrs Moon is a book that was inspired by my work with ‘Pictures to Share’ producing books for people with dementia. Through this work I came across Martin Slevin and his autobiographical book ‘The Little Girl in the Radiator’ about caring for his mother who was living with dementia. The humour and the tragedy of real events in his story inspired many of the events depicted in Me and Mrs Moon.
Martin’s book can be found at here
Written and Illustrated by Helen Bate
Published by Otter Barry Books in the UK and USA 2019
ISBN 978-1-91095-994-7
"This is a rare and potentially significant book".
Rebecca Butler (Rebecca Butler holds a BA in English Literature, an MA in children’s literature and a doctorate in education.
She works as a volunteer literacy tutor at a school for children with special needs and at a mainstream primary school.)
"In her familiar graphic novel style, Helen Bate tells a powerful story of how two children, narrator Maisie and her friend Dylan, set about helping their beloved friend and neighbour Granny Moon as she shows signs that all is not well.
Love and devotion radiate from the pages of this intensely moving story (based on actual events); but it doesn’t gloss over the enormous challenges those caring for someone with dementia are likely to face. Rather, it offers young readers an opportunity to better understand something of the condition and perhaps be better prepared should they encounter someone living with it.
This is a book that deserves to be in every school and should be read in all families.”
Jill R Bennett https://redreadinghub.blog/2019/05/21/me-and-mrs-moon/
"We both miss Nan. Nan, my grandmother, and C's great-grandmother succumbed to Dementia 3 years ago - so it's fair to say that we approach children's books that deal with this horrific illness with some trepidation. "Me and Mrs Moon" by Helen Bate once again demonstrates just how Helen manages to take the trickiest subjects to turn into children's stories, and turns them into something both brilliantly observant and sensitively conveyed.
Straight off the bat this book deserves huge praise for not trying to dress Dementia up, instead very carefully conveying both the sense of hopelessness that loved ones feel when someone they love is stricken by it, and the sense of frustration the sufferer feels as they are robbed of the methods of imparting just what is happening to them.
Helen's "Peter in Peril" had us entirely convinced that she was a huge talent to watch, and "Me and Mrs Moon" just reinforces that belief. This is superb.
Sum this book up in a sentence: One of the most impressive, important and sensitive children's stories about dementia that we've seen so far and one that made us both happy and sad in equal measure.”
https://readitdaddy.blogspot.com/2019/05/readitdaddys-picture-book-of-week-week_31.html