THE DAY MY MOTHER LEFT

Artistic nine-year-old Jeremy, who also has a a love of fishing and birds, struggles to cope when his beloved mother leaves and moves in with the father of his archenemy. His father, a science teacher and soccer coach, falls into a depression, his 16-year-old sister distances herself from the family and Jeremy finds refuge in the woods: “It was the only place where I felt at home.” Prosek, a well-respected author of adult books about fishing as well as a picture book, A Good Day’s Fishing (2004), writes sensitively and passionately about nature in this story of loss and growing up. The scenes of building a New England wall of stones and fishing for bluefish with his self-reliant Uncle John are particularly strong. But many of the characters are not fully realized; his mother, portrayed as unstable, loopy and sentimental, is especially sketchy. And the premise—her leaving and having no contact with Jeremy for three years—engenders a melodramatic tone. However, the 26 etchings, mostly of birds, made by Prosek on copper plates and used as chapter headings, are indeed lovely, and give young readers a visual sense of Jeremy’s naturalistic world. (Fiction. 12-14)