by Katie Cleminson
Hardback, £12.99
This beautiful picture book is exactly what is says it is: a story of both love and grief. I read it as a story about the loss of a baby, the transformative nature of profound grief, and everlasting love for a lost child. I found out later that Cleminson wrote it after the loss of her baby daughter, Wren.
Like all the best picture books, this is for everyone, and especially anyone living with bereavement. Pen is with other penguins on hatching day, but her “little egg sat nestled in the sand. All was still. Pen felt a tight pain in her chest.” Pen feels compelled to go on a solo journey through time and space, and is changed by who she meets and what she finds: “although she and her chick couldn’t be together, that didn’t mean Pen had to be alone”. Finding a way through agonising days is so well expressed here by the colour palette, which warms and lightens as Pen travels onward.
For me, Beyond is up there with Michael Rosen’s classic picture book The Sad Book, with words and images combining to produce something enduringly helpful. This book is a gift against the loneliness of grief, and offering the promise of hope. I think it will be both a comfort and a way in to talking about baby loss. A gem.
Review by Bethan